Cruzando fronteiras: um estudo sobre mobilidade humana, construção de redes e de novos territórios de imigrantes venezuelanos (as) na cidade de Manaus/Amazonas

Abstract

From an anthropological and ethnographic perspective, this thesis seeks to verify which factors contributed to the Venezuelan immigration towards the city of Manaus/Amazonas. For this, we used an approach of life trajectories of Venezuelan families, which provided us with an understanding of this migratory phenomenon to the south-south border, in the case in question for Brazil. In this research, we intend to elucidate some questions such as: what are the causes that led Venezuela to change its condition from a country of immigrants to a country of emigrants? What is the status granted to Venezuelans in the countries of the region with emphasis on Brazil, were they considered immigrants or refugees? How were social networks, whether family, affinities or migratory, being built from an immigration that took great proportions from 2015? How did the process of producing new territories and the (re)construction of identities take place in the capital of Manaus? What are the challenges for sociocultural and labor insertion in this new society? We also present (i) human mobility in times of the Covid-19 pandemic in order to understand the strategies of (over) experience, resistance and resignification of Venezuelan immigrants. We conclude in this research that structural aspects added over the years have combined to project the advent of an unprecedented crisis in the history of Venezuela, resulting in the departure of thousands of Venezuelans from the country. As for the migratory flow, it can be characterized as mixed, that is, composed of both refugees and voluntary immigrants. In relation to migratory networks, it was almost non-existent, being built and strengthened within this recent and voluminous movement to South American countries. As for the process of producing new territories, it went through a dynamic in networks through the bonds and contacts established between countrymen or between Venezuelans and Brazilians. With regard to identity, within the scope of anthropology it has a relational character and should be thought of in the plural, identities. Insertion is a theme that involves multiple dimensions of life in society, going beyond the documented immigrant, other conditions are revealed, such as access to work, mastery of the language, education, the existence of support networks, among others.