ForMOVE's researchers Ximena Alba Villalever and Stephanie Schütze will be hosting an international workshop at this year's LASA congress. The virtual congress takes place from the 5th of May to the 8th of May and its main theme is "Socio-environmental polarization and rivalry between great powers."

Our workshop "Migration and Violence in the Americas" is scheduled for May 7, 2022 at 10am (San Francisco). It will be held in Spanish. The participants will be:

• Chair: Stephanie Schütze (Freie Universität Berlin)

• Presenter: Martha Luz Rojas-Wiesner (El Colegio de la Frontera Sur)

• Presenter: Bruno Miranda (Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales (IISUNAM))

• Presenter: Pia Berghoff (Freie Universität Berlin)

• Presenter: Alejandra Díaz de León (El Colegio de México)

• Session Organizer:Ximena Alba Villalever (Free University of Berlin)

Workshop description

Migration in Latin America is the result of various causes: political or economic insecurity, socio-economic inequality, environmental catastrophes, extractive projects (mining, industrial agriculture, etc.), armed conflicts and other forms of organized violence, such as gangs and cartels, or persecution or threats by state agents. In many cases, these processes are multi-factorial, where at least two of these causes were the source of the decision to leave the country of origin. During transit to their destinations, migrants are also constantly confronted with other forms of violence: abuse by government institutions and officials, drug cartels, trafficking networks and gangs, as well as labor exploitation, discrimination and generalized violence. This is particularly true in the case of irregular migrants. In addition, the implementation of increasingly restrictive migration policies - a globalized effort to externalize borders, particularly advocated by wealthy countries to specifically stop south-north movements - continues to violate human rights and places migrants in increasingly vulnerable conditions. In this roundtable we will discuss these intertwinements between migration and violence, focusing specifically on the role of the states involved in transit through the Latin American corridor.

> The registration for the LASA congress can be found here. > The program of the entire congress can be found here.