Soziale Welten der Migration

What does migration mean for the people who stay in their places of origin? While migration studies have mainly scrutinised the routes migrants take and the places they arrive at, this monograph analyses social worlds shaped by migration from the perspective of migrants’ places of origin in Southern Mexico. The book is based on an ethnographic study that the author carried out in cooperation with the inhabitants of indigenous communities in the Southern Mexican region of Selva Lacandona. Its data analysis draws on grounded theory/situational analysis. Basing her analysis on decolonisation, gender-theoretical and transnational approaches, the author demonstrates that within indigenous communal governments, migration does not only mean fleeing from the conditions of poverty and marginalisation, but also acquires a collective meaning, thus offering the migrant’s places of origin the chance to maintain their communal life. Dr Miriam friz Trzeciak is a postdoc at the Chair of Interculturality at the BTU in Cottbus-Senftenberg.