Uncertain Citizenship. Megan Ryburn

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СКАЧАТЬ activities that nevertheless reproduce and reinforce their connections across borders. These might be things like socializing with conationals or decorating their homes in a way that incorporates the aesthetics of the places they have come from. Reflecting on these types of practices has led others to a different conceptualization of transnationalism. This interpretation understands international migration as a process occurring within, and creating, “transnational social spaces.”⁵⁶

      Peggy Levitt and Bernadette Jaworsky define “transnational social spaces” as “arenas” that “are multi-layered and multi-sited, including not just the home and host countries but other sites around the world that connect migrants to their conationals and coreligionists. Both migrants and nonmigrants occupy them because the flow of people, money, and ‘social remittances’ (ideas, norms, practices, and identities) within these spaces is so dense, thick, and widespread that nonmigrants’ lives are also transformed, even though they do not move.”⁵⁷ Expanding further on the idea, Levitt and Jaworsky explain that even though few people may engage in intensive transnational activity, many more take part in occasional activities. Over time “their combined efforts add up and can alter the economies, values, and practices of entire regions.”⁵⁸

      Thus, the idea of transnational social spaces challenges the “methodological nationalism” that would equate geographical, physical space with societal space.⁵⁹ It is an idea founded on the tenets that space is actively socially constructed and is a fluid and changing process.⁶⁰ A transnational social space exists beyond, and indeed may contest, the boundaries of the “national container society.”⁶¹ Nevertheless, the importance of the state in forging, shaping, and restricting the creation of transnational social spaces cannot be overlooked.⁶² Not only individual migrants and nonmigrants, but also states, institutions, and businesses at the local, national, and international levels are involved in the construction of transnational social spaces. Furthermore, the degree to which individual migrants (and nonmigrants) can negotiate and control the construction of transnational social spaces is highly contingent on their gender, race, socioeconomic status, and other social identities. It is therefore important to consider migrants’ relationships to transnational social spaces from an intersectional perspective.⁶³

      In addition to the perspective on citizenship previously discussed, a transnational social spaces approach to international migration forms one of the conceptual building blocks of this book. It is an approach informed by an understanding of space as a fluid, multidimensional process constructed through interrelations among varied actors. These actors may be states and institutions or migrant and nonmigrant individuals. Individual actors’ ability to move within and manipulate transnational social spaces will be profoundly impacted by their intersecting social identities. As I explain at the end of this chapter, I transfer this spatial understanding of migrant transnationalism to the concept of citizenship in order to better comprehend how and why migrants are excluded from some aspects of citizenship but included in others across nation-state borders. Recognizing the importance of history and place to the development of specific transnational spaces of migration, prior to this I turn, however, to outline approaches to migration studies taken in South-South contexts and examine migration flows specifically in the Bolivian-Chilean context.

      South-South Migration

      Katja Hujo and Nicola Piper point to a “dearth of knowledge on the dynamics of migration between countries in the South” and in general a profound lack of research on the topic.⁶⁴ Arguably largely responsible for the scarcity of work on South-South migration is the northern bias of academia more widely.⁶⁵ Susanne Melde and colleagues remind us that most funders are located in the North, resulting in relatively little support for research that examines migration within the global South, given the many northern anxieties surrounding migration flows to the North from the South.⁶⁶ This is in addition to the more generalized tendency for migration research to focus on short-term projects that will offer solutions to “migration problems,” which leads to a subsequent lack of study of the “nature, causes, and consequences of migration,” as Mohamed Berriane and Hein de Haas maintain.⁶⁷

      Nevertheless, a slow but steady series of attempts have been made to seriously address the flows that conform what is estimated to be nearly half of all international migration.⁶⁸ Much of this work has focused on the “migration-development nexus,” and there has been a tendency to address the potential for migrants to be “agents of development”—for example, through remittance sending. This focus can be to the neglect of the many other important aspects of the everyday lived experiences of migrants addressed in the transnational studies literature, which looks predominantly at South-North migration.⁶⁹

      Still, there is some research that is beginning to address these lacunae, as in the case of the important, incipient work on migration in Chile and from Bolivia, with which I engage throughout this book. While I agree wholeheartedly with Hujo and Piper and others that there is a severe paucity of research on South-South migration, I suggest that they may potentially fall into one of the traps of northern academic bias through neglect of some research on the subject published in the South, often in languages other than English.⁷⁰ Additionally, some research that could be considered to address “South-South migration” does not identify itself as such, preferring instead to refer specifically to the countries under study. This is understandable given the problematic nature of the terms “global South” and “global North” and the homogenizing effect they can have.⁷¹ However, greater use of the term “South-South migration” as one way of categorizing such studies may assist with knowledge sharing and construction. In doing so, somewhat paradoxically, it may aid in promoting understanding of South-South migration as a heterogeneous phenomenon, but with marked points of difference from South-North migration—as this book endeavors to do.

      The Bolivian-Chilean Context

      An overview of the particular migration context under study is therefore important to understand both its specificities and the ways it fits within broader trends. In terms of Bolivian migration, it is estimated that around 706,000 Bolivians, or 6.8 percent of the Bolivian population, currently reside outside the country, although some estimates put the figure as high as 14 to 23 percent of the population.⁷² While historically Bolivia pursued policies of encouraging (white, elite) immigration in order to populate what was portrayed as an “uninhabited country,” for many years now it has been a country of negative net migration. This has been combined with a continuous flow of internal migration from rural to urban areas since the 1952 revolution.

      As previously indicated, the effects of the revolution were complex, and its lasting impacts are debated. What is clear, however, is that the processes it set in motion sparked the beginning of a significant increase in rural-urban migration, predominantly from Aymara and Quechua communities in the western altiplano. While the agrarian reform—which was one of the major changes wrought by the revolution—did make most rural indigenous families into landowners, plots of land were not large, and they became further reduced through fragmentation due to inheritance and the population growth that followed the revolution. Combined with the increasing importance of a cash economy, the smaller size of plots made it difficult for rural indigenous inhabitants to make a living. This was particularly the case for young women, who were not necessarily favored in inheritance arrangements. They also had the greatest chance of making an income in the city, often as domestic workers, but in addition as market and street vendors. Many therefore ventured to the city as part of a family livelihood diversification strategy, or sometimes to seek a degree of independence. Thus, although both men and women left their rural communities for urban areas in large numbers from 1953 onward, young women in particular migrated.⁷³

      Internal migration increased particularly from 1971 to 1978, during General Hugo Banzer’s dictatorship. Almost one-third of those from the rural altiplano who moved to La Paz between the years 1953 and 1980 did so in this period.⁷⁴ It was an era of massive modernization of urban areas, not just in the west of Bolivia but notably СКАЧАТЬ