Social identity and social representations in environmentally induced migration contexts in Mexico / Identidad social y representaciones sociales en contextos de migración inducida ambientalmente en México

• In Event: Environmentally Induced Migration in Mexico/ Migración inducida Ambientalmente en México

Abstract

ENGLISH: This paper presents research results regarding the transformation of social identities with a transversal gender perspective, seen from the standpoint of the theoretic and methodological frame of Social Representations Theory (SRT). Rooted in a case study, identities of women and men are explored in the processes of environmentally induced migration, and their relation to knowledge, emotions and practice in the migrant-expelling and migrant-receiving community (out and return migration). Methodologically, it favours triangulation, looking quantitatively at the socioeconomic and demographic local profile, and especially developing a qualitative analysis of environmentally induced migration in the context of origin and return migration. AS is typical of studies in social representations and critical ethnography, it gives voice to research subjects through techniques such as in depth interviews, focus groups, life histories and participant observation. Thus, psico-social processes are researched in relation to environmental, economic, cultural and relational changes in the local migrant-expelling and return-migration receiving context. Resilience, adaptation, coping and transformation strategies are explored, as well as migration stereotypes, and negotiations between groups and peers, which altogether impact individual and collective identities, intra and inter family and couple relations, family configurations, inter-generational and gender relations, as well as the social representations that root them all.

ESPAÑOL: A partir de un estudio de caso en México, se investigan identidades de mujeres y varones en procesos de migración inducida ambientalmente. Metodológicamente se favorece la triangulación, cotejando cuantitativamente el perfil socioeconómico y demográfico y principalmente desarrollando un análisis cualitativo de la migración a partir de técnicas como entrevistas en profundidad, grupos focales, historias de vida y observación participativa. Se exploran de forma sistémica los procesos psico-sociales de la migración, en su relación con los cambios ambientales, económicos, culturales y relacionales in situ. Se indagan la resiliencia, adaptación y transformación, los estereotipos migratorios y las negociaciones entre grupos y pares, que en conjunto impactan en las identidades individuales y colectivas, las relaciones intra e inter familiares y de pareja, las configuraciones familiares, las relaciones inter generacionales y de género, así como las representaciones sociales que las subyacen.

Author

• Serena Eréndira Serrano Oswald, UNAM