Gender, mobilities and inequalities: the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relations of help, care and transnational affection between migrants and refugees in the city of São Paulo

Abstract

The research proposal takes as a reference the trajectories of migrant and refugee women living in the city of São Paulo to analyze the processes of production of inequalities that operate from the crossing of borders. The aim is to advance in the production of knowledge about transnational mobilities, gender and processes of precariousness, observing the strategies of migrants and refugees and their responses to the different crises that affect their trajectories, in particular the health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic with its economic, occupational, housing and affective consequences. We intend to analyze these aspects by articulating the theoretical-methodological framework of gender and intersectional studies with the production that deals with contemporary mobilities to Brazil, centered on transits between the countries of the so-called Global South. Fieldwork will be carried out by following the trajectories of national women from countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia and Nigeria, part of which we have already worked with in previous research. We will not neglect, however, the mobility of Venezuelan nationals, which are the most representative nationality in terms of entry into the country and the different requests for regularization. With the intention of analyzing their search for possibilities of economic and affective regeneration, in addition to monitoring the trajectories and paths of these women in the city of São Paulo, we also propose an ethnographic exercise that includes the affective flow between borders and contact with some of the families of the migrants and refugees, considering the particularities of the information flow in different origins and the responses of migrants and refugees in the face of these ruptures. The proposal therefore contemplates the adaptive capacities and agency of both these migrants and their families, observing the fabric of the relationships of help, affection and transnational care. (AU)