Learning the Unpaved Way: How Migrants Learn to Be Migrants in Transit (Poster 47)

• In Event: AERA Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

"The border externalization of immigration enforcement between the United States and Mexico has led to migrant shelters becoming frontline institutions, grappling with the immediate and long-term needs of migrants. Thus, changes in migration patterns and shifts in immigration policies place much of the responsibility for migrant well-being on non-governmental shelters and organizations, which count on limited resources and often cannot offer prolonged care. Migrants frequently enter and exit shelters as they await the next step along their journey. While their stay typically varies depending on shelter rules, and the needs and profiles of migrants, these transitional, liminal spaces often provide more than food and refuge. Shelters can be hubs of activity where migrants are not only able to find comfort, but to also create connections, produce art, enjoy meals, take part in games, and find moments of joy. As destination points, shelters become a nexus of migrants' diverse journeys’, places where people converge to share what has been learned across the voyages, share advice, and forge new kin networks. As such, I argue that migrant shelters are transitional educational spaces outside formal settings, which impart their guests with guidance, care, and fortitude.
This paper focuses on migrants in transit through Central Mexico. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork within non-governmental migrant shelters across Central Mexico, including 20 in-depth interviews with migrants and social service providers, this paper extends the theorization of out-of-school time to include migrant shelters. I explore how and what migrants learn about migration, which is often managed, by the structures and systems of the shelters. In doing so, I demonstrate how migrant shelters, like many other community-based organizations, are forced to respond due to state in/action, yet restricted by international organizations who provide funding."

Author

• Claudia Triana, University of Wisconsin - Madison