Pachuca. In recent months, one element has permeated the understanding and communication of the "problems" surrounding migratory processes. The crisis, as the axis through which discourse and opinion on population displacement and migrants is constituted, has become a component of particular attention, not only because of its chaotic references, but also because of its novel enclaves.
Talking about migratory crises in recent times is full of amnesia and originality, as if they had never existed before, as if their existence were the product of unknown and unrelated beings who only seek to alter established ways of life; but history will take care of this mistake.
The exodus generated development
Migration, as a social relationship, has existed alongside society, and has even shaped cultures, civilizations and states. The development of the contemporary economic system would be unthinkable without the mobility provided by those adventurous traders, or, for that matter, the formation of the "great nations" without the contributions made by migrants in the manufacturing sector during times of war.
Tal es el caso de las y los mexicanos que poblaron gran parte del sur de Estados Unidos en la primera mitad del siglo XX, revitalizando sus fábricas y sus campos.
Some elements need to be clear, because this "spontaneous" (re)discovery is not only a product of the events that explain the exodus, such as war, poverty, fear, among others, It is also a repercussion of the intensification of social movement processes in recent years, permeating every corner of the planet, as stated in the data published in the "World Migration Report 2020" by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Depopulation has increased in recent years
This document shows that in the last 40 years the international migrant population has tripled, from 84 million people in 1970 to 249 million in 2015.
Although this group of people only represents 3.4 percent of the world's population, by 2015 the difficulties they generate in their dynamic have a substantial impact on the societies that are part of the processes, whether they are arriving, leaving, traveling or all three at the same time, as is the case in Mexico today.
This problem is also enhanced by the construction and appropriation of the figure of the migrant and migration in political discourse; Thus, as well as questioning the elements that promote the movement of people, it is also necessary to emphasize what is meant by migrant or migration, so as not to fall into the uninformed, misleading and mythological characterizations of the figure that some agents have been responsible for spreading.
Migration and discrimination
Various studies in the social sciences have managed to remove all this symbolic charge that surrounds the relationship between us and them, between established populations and those that are on the move. The study carried out by sociologists Norbert Elías and John Scotson in the Winston Parva community in England is a case in point.
This analysis questioned not only the biological and economic elements as determinants in unequal relationships, but also allowed us to look more closely at the social elements that make discriminatory relationships possible.
While the two groups shared nationality, class and culture, one of them saw the other as "lower class" due to reasons related to the appropriation of the territory and the history of neighborly relations.
Thus, the groups set out to use a whole machinery, such as chisme and lies, to demerit the actions and existence of the other group by asserting their position within the political and community structure, giving the group the label of the marginalized, both symbolically and legally.
Relationships of inequality, the other face
Without going into more detail, one of the aims of my postgraduate research is to highlight the fact that, although the discourses of rejection are based on questions of "racial purity" (a discussion which, for the most part, lacks scientific support), invasion or sanity as a justification of the same, what lies behind, what drives the whole machinery of exclusion, is the perpetuation of relationships of power and domination, in other words, relationships of inequality.
It's not that one group has a "lower rank" than another, it's just that the dominant group doesn't want to change its ability to dominate and exploit.
So, if we transfer all this construction to the discourse of migration, it would be interesting to reflect on who those are who are in charge of spreading the negative elements about people in this status and what their motives are; perhaps we will find that many people are only seeking to perpetuate a dynamic of exploitation.
This reflection is extremely important for the national context, because the caravans and the closing of the borders have led to a change in the perception that the population has about migration, because we only have to remember that the National Discrimination Survey (Enadi) 2017, before the caravans and the strengthening of the discourse of rejection to this sector, already visualized the following results:
39.1 percent of the population aged 18 and over would not rent a quarter of their home to a foreigner.
By grouping together the categories of skin tone, weight or height and way of dressing, or rather, personal grooming, which form part of the "appearance" of individuals, it can be seen that more than half of the population (53.8 percent) in the age range mentioned have experienced discrimination in the last year due to these features.
This data is of the utmost importance when the migrant has historically been characterized as a marginal and is usually identified by elements of "portación".
What I want, both with my research and with this article, is to visualize the social components that make up the figure of this population sector and characterize migration in order to understand them as such, as events created in the social dynamic and, therefore, with intentionality and the possibility of transformation.
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