Strengths and Resilience of Migrant Women in Transit: an Analysis of the Narratives of Central American Women in Irregular Transit Through Mexico Towards the USA

Mayra Carolina Lemus-Way () and Helena Johansson ()
Additional contact information
Mayra Carolina Lemus-Way: University of Groningen
Helena Johansson: University of Gothenburg

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2020, vol. 21, issue 3, No 5, 745-763

Abstract: Abstract This study departed from the idea that all people, including those hardest hit by adversity, have strengths and resiliencies. It posed the question on how a particularly vulnerable group, Central American migrant women in irregular transit through Mexico, used their strengths and resilience to reach the border with the USA. Past research has failed to address the issue of strengths and resilience in Central American migrant women, instead, much attention has been placed on the risks and vulnerabilities of this group. This research started from the strengths perspective and resilience theories to address the issue of skills and abilities of migrant women in transit through Mexico. Specifically, it was about discovering the women’s strengths, knowing how they used them to face and overcome the adversities of the journey and how they made sense of them. For this purpose, 10 narrative interviews were conducted in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, and microethnographic work was done with these women. The results of this research indicated that these migrant women are possessors of internal and external strengths; the first is related to their religious beliefs, courage, endurance and goal setting and the second with the support received from people, institutions, and their families. It was concluded that thanks to the combination of all these strengths, these women were able to successfully reach the border with the USA.

Keywords: Transit migration; Female migration; Central America; Resilience; Strengths perspective (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-019-00690-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joimai:v:21:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s12134-019-00690-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-019-00690-z

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().