ABSTRACT
Given the risks, how have scholars conducted research on migration in violent areas of Latin America? How has this research evolved over the past several decades? And finally, how can we improve studies going forward? This chapter begins with an overview of Latin American migration scholarship, focusing on research conducted in territories controlled or contested by criminal gangs, paramilitaries, guerrillas,and non-state armed groups. Subsequently, we describe in detail the four primary waves of migration research conducted in violent areas over the past three decades, which we demarcate by their object of study and methodology. The objects of study include civilians’ motivations for fleeing, migrants’ destination selection and experiences en route, the motivations and strategies of the expelling armed groups, and civilians’ efforts to resist displacement. The most common methodology for such research is interviews, although examples of archival work, ethnography, and surveys are also identified. We use examples from three countries (El Salvador, Colombia, and México) to illustrate theoretical contributions from the fieldwork and strategies employed to gather data amidst violence. We conclude by suggesting that scholars continue to draw on the strong methodological and theoretical foundations of the “traditional” migration literature, which has generally been developed in peaceful areas to describe (largely) peaceful processes. However, we encourage synthesizing these foundations with insights from the forced migration and violence literatures, as well as from the practical strategies developed by violence scholars from across the social sciences and humanities carrying out research in insecure spaces. Such a fusion, we suggest, is often necessary, since even scholars researching topics other than violence-induced displacement must increasingly account for whether and how violence structures migration processes. This approach preserves as much methodological and theoretical rigor as possible while simultaneously folding a deeper understanding of violence into the research and adapting to the challenges of working in violent contexts. The aim is to further improve our ability to carry out robust and responsible research in such environments.
