The effects on families and communities of reintegrating migrant youth

California State University-Long Beach Foundation, Long Beach CA

Investigators

Abstract

This study will examine the effects of reintegrating migrant children into their families and communities. Using a longitudinal approach and mixed methods, the results should generate knowledge regarding the policies and practices of removal and reception of children, providing evidence to inform child protection and human rights locally and internationally. The research will contribute to scholarship on migration, reintegration, and the effects of law. This project engages three areas of scholarship: the migration literature on deportability, the anthropology of youth, and socio-historical literature of post-conflict nations. Although prior scholarship has seen children as the recipients of others' care, and migrants as individuals in motion, the present project challenges this approach by positing that children are part of a family structure and that their return has effects on them, their families, and their communities. Using the household as the primary unit of analysis, the study examines the effects of youth reintegration on families, peer groups, and communities. The principal investigator has had access to migrating youth in the United States and will follow them as they are reintegrated with their families in Guatemala. The research will employ a household survey, ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and individual ethnographies.