Gioconda Herrera

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Fall 2023

Research focus while a CERC Scholar - Intersectional Approaches to transnational Migration: Regional perspectives

South America has undergone several transformations in the dynamics of its international migration flows. While the second half of the twentieth century was characterized by South-North migration, particularly from the Andean Region to the US and Europe; and by transborder migrations within Latin America, the twenty-first century brought about an important diversification of destinations and added complexity to the structural causes of migration as well as to migrants’ motivations and decision-making to migrate. Such dynamics were accentuated during the pandemic and States’ responses to this new situation also evolved in different ways.

Giocanda’s research at CERC Migration will look at continuities and dislocations in migration patterns in South America and how they relate to previous conditions of precarious social integration and increasing xenophobia. Her work will examine the formation of complex mobility assemblages that include internal migration, transit migration and return as new ways of dealing with survival and social reproduction in the post COVID-19 age.

Related to CERC research theme: The Governance of Migration in a Globalising World (opens in new window) 

Career Achievements

Gioconda Herrera is Professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador. Her research and publications have revolved around questions about the effects of globalization on social inequalities in Latin America from a gender perspective, for which she has looked at Andean migration to Europe and the United States, especially of women and Indigenous peoples, and also at the migratory returns and circularities that have taken place as a result of the global economic crisis. She currently is investigating the post-deportation life of Indigenous migrants in rural communities of Ecuador, and is part of a comparative research team of eight countries on Venezuelan migration in Latin America. Gioconda was Vice-deputy Academic Director of FLACSO for the period 2014-2016, she was Associate Editor of the Latin American Research Review in the area of Sociology and she was President of the Latin American Studies Association for the period 2020 to 2021.

Relevant Publications

(2022) (ed. with Carmen Gómez)  Migration in South America (external link, opens in new window) . Springer- IMISCOE. Serie Regional Migration.

(2022) Movilidades, control fronterizo y luchas migrantes. (external link, opens in new window)  (eds.) (with Eduardo Domenech and Liliana Rivera Sánchez). CLACSO -Editorial Siglo XXI. Serie Miradas Latinoamericanas.

(2022) with Maria Cristina Carrillo Espinosa & Ruth Lara. Emotions, Inequalities and Crises: Ecuadorian Migrants in Europe during the COVID-19 Pandemic (external link, opens in new window) . International Migration. First online Published: 17 October 

(2022) with Ulla Berg. Transnational Families and Return in the Age of Deportation: The case of Indigenous Ecuadorian Migrants. Global Network. 22:1, Pgs. 36-50

(2022) with Vera Espinoza, M., Prieto Rosas, V., Zapata, G.P., Gandini, L., Fernández de la Reguera, A., Herrera, G., López, S., Zamora, C., Blouin, C., Montiel, C., Cabezas, G., Palla, I. Towards a Typology of Social Protection for Migrants and Refugees in Latin America during the COVID‑19 Pandemic (external link, opens in new window) . Comparative Migration Studies. (2021) 9:52. 

(2019) Precariedad laboral y construcción social de la “ilegalidad”: familias indígenas ecuatorianas en Nueva York (external link, opens in new window) . En Revista Migraciones Internacionales. 10 (19). Colegio de la Frontera Norte.  México.

(2019). From Immigration to Transit Migration?: Race and Gender Entanglements in New Migration to Ecuador (external link, opens in new window) . In Bada, X., Feldmann, A. & Schütze, S. (Eds.), New Migration Patterns in the Americas: Challenges for the 21st Century. Palgrave, Migration and Citizenship series. 

(2019) with Cabezas, G. Ecuador: De la recepción a la disuasión. Políticas frente a la población venezolana y experiencia migratoria 2015-2018 (external link, opens in new window) . En L. Gandini, F. Lozano, & V. Prieto (Eds.), Crisis y migración de población venezolana - Entre la desprotección y la seguridad jurídica en Latinoamérica. UNAM.  

(2016) Travail domestique, soins et familles transnationales en Amérique Latine: réflexions sur un champ en construction (external link, opens in new window) . Revista Amérique Latine: Histoire et Mémoires. Les Cahiers ALHIM (en línea). No. 31, June.

(2013) Gender and International Migration: Contributions and Cross Fertilizations (external link, opens in new window) . Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 39. Pg. 471-489.

(2012) Starting Over Again? Crisis, Gender, and Social Reproduction Strategies among Ecuadorian Migrant Families in Spain (external link, opens in new window) . In Feminist Economics, 18(2). April 2012. Special Issue: Gender and International Migration. Routledge. Taylor and Francis. Pg.125-148.