Abstract

DURAND, Jorge. Contemporary Causes of Migration in Mesoamerica. Norteamérica [online]. 2022, vol.17, n.2, pp.213-240.  Epub Apr 28, 2023. ISSN 2448-7228.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cisan.24487228e.2022.2.584.

Mexico and Central America are the main source of foreign labor, both permanent and temporary, for the United States and Canada, and, with very similar characteristics, together they conform the Mesoamerican migration system. However, their historical processes are very different. In Mexico, the vicinity, recruitment and articulation of labor supply and demand were the main drivers of the migration that originated at the end of the 19th century. In Central America, the detonator was the violence unleashed in the last three decades of the 20th century, in its different modalities: political, armed, social and systemic, which gave rise to different types of migrants: exiles, refugees, economic migrants, forced and uprooted migrants. This article analyzes the main structural contemporary causes of migration in the Mesoamerican migration system, which are currently renamed as systemic violence, neoliberal poverty, and institutional impunity.

Keywords : Mexico; Central America; Mesoamerican system; migration; systemic violence; neoliberal poverty; institucional impunity.