Tue, 12 May 2026, 2:00 PM  Care, Networks and Resistance: Revisiting the Agency of Forced Migrant Families in Mexico and Colombia

Susanne Willers Postdoctoral Researcher
Institute of Latin American Studies (LAI)
Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin)

Following the pandemic, the Americas have experienced unprecedented numbers of people migrating from South to North America. In this context, Mexico and Colombia have emerged as critical transit sites, but also as locations of forced immobility within the North American migration regime. Almost half a million migrants crossed the Darien Gap from Colombia to Panama in 2023, and Mexico received the third highest number of asylum applications globally in 2021. As migration policies increasingly restrict movement, migrant families are forced to rely on informal survival strategies and face prolonged uncertainty. In the presentation I examine how families from Venezuela, Honduras and other origins navigate these conditions through everyday practices such as placemaking, networking and care. Drawing on biographical interviews and ethnographic observations conducted in Mexico City, Medellín and Pasto in the context of the collective research project ForMOVe II (Ruhr-Uni Bochum, FU Berlin), the analysis employs a feminist, intersectional framework to analyze the influence of gender, age and migration status on survival strategies. It also revises opportunity structures and migration policies at the local level. The findings reveal that families actively construct temporary homes, form transnational support networks and negotiate with state and non-state actors to secure their basic needs. These practices constitute not merely adaptation, but also forms of resistance, agency, and placemaking. By examining these practices at a local level, the study provides a more nuanced understanding of the global dynamics of mobility and immobility. The findings emphasize the importance of acknowledging the agency of migrants and their families to better understand the connection between reception policies and migration dynamics.