Trajectories and experiences of migration amongst Paraguayan workers in forestry production (Paraná?s Lower Delta, Buenos Aires, Argentina)

STRACCIA, PATRICIO HERNÁN; ESCOBAR DECOUD, CRISTIAN

Estrasburgo

Conferencia; BELONGINGS AND BORDERS ? BIOGRAPHIES, MOBILITIES, AND THE POLITICS OF MIGRATION; 2019

European Sociological Association

Forestry production is the most important agricultural activity in Paraná?s Lower Delta (Buenos Aires, Argentina), more specifically in a region currently known as Forestry Core Area. The expansion of Salicaceae production (poplar & willow) was promoted by the Argentinian State through several economic incentives since the second part of the 20th century, producing profound changes in the labor market in Paraná?s Lower Delta. Since the 1990s, the largest amount of labor needed for the forestry production (planting, pruning, thinning, pest management and harvest) are provided by young male Paraguayan workers.These young migrants are mostly from the same region of origin, the Department of Caazapá (Paraguay). In a previous work we studied this process at the meso-level, focusing on how migratory networks facilitate their movement, both in a spatial and a social sense. We also studied this process at the micro-level, highlighting the trajectories and experiences of migration amongst these young male Paraguayan workers. In this paper we will further develop that analysis, with the goal of analyze how the meso- and the micro-structural factorsare intertwined in the migratory process of these young Paraguayan. Our fieldwork started in 2012, and to achieve our goal we employed a qualitative research methodology which included in-depth interviews and participant observation. This methodology allowed us to recognize the migrant?s experiences and to put in evidence interpersonal and intergenerational dynamics through a biographical account. In this paper we will identify how the Paraguayan workers experience their migrations and how they negotiate it, both in their regions of origin (Caazapá) and in their destination (Paraná?s Lower Delta). We willalso identify how their trajectories and experiences in Caazapá shape the ways theyexperience their migration in Paraná?s Delta. Finally, we will interrogate how these migrants challenge and reshape the international frontier, and how the Paraná?s Delta and its similarities with Caazapá, as well as some dimensions of the migrants? trajectories and experiences in their region of origin, allows them to reduce the symbolic distance between these two places.