Bolivia…? Wachilanga!’: Workshops on migration and refuge with teenage students in Jujuy (Argentina)

ROVETTA CORTÉS, ANA IRENE; YUFRA, LAURA C.

Conferencia; The Role of Universities in Addressing Societal Challenges and Fostering Democracy; 2021

University of Akureyri

Jujuy is a province in the north of Argentina that shares its northern border with Bolivia. It is a space populated by people who, despite having experienced past and present cross-border migration, often tend to avoid speaking out about it. As members of the National University of Jujuy and the Argentine Scientific and Technical Research Council, in 2018 we carried out a series of workshops on the topics of migration and refuge in three secondary schools in the capital of Jujuy. Our aims were encouraging teenagers to address the sensitive issues collectively and, also, bringing our academic work closer to the young members of the community where we live and work. We designed a series of ludic-educational activities in which we asked them to tell us about their ancestors and people from previous generations who had had a significant impact on their lives; and one in which, using cardboard-made passports, we encouraged them to imagine nations, (forced and voluntary) displacements among them, and possible plans to promote, organize or contain the migration flows. Among the results of our intervention, we discovered: (1) A great reluctance to recognize family (or any other kind of) ties with people from Bolivia, and (2) a larger inclination on the part of teenage girls to generate collaborative and inclusive strategies for the imagined nations.Topics of interest:1.Civic responsibility of universities and institutions 2.Identities and communities3.Migration in small states and rural areas