Voluntas
Volume 28, Issue 5, 2017, Pages 1962-1987

Transnational Information Politics and the “Child Migration Crisis”: Guatemalan NGOs Respond to Youth Migration (Article)

Nichols B. , Umana K. , Britton T. , Farias L. , Lavalley R. , Hall-Clifford R.*
  • a NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Departments of Anthropology and Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States
  • b NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Department of Public Health, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, United States
  • c NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Department of Immigration and Settlement Studies, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
  • d NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Graduate Program in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Western University, London, ON, Canada
  • e NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States
  • f NAPA-OT Field School Guatemala, Antigua, Guatemala, Departments of Sociology and Anthropology and Public Health, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, United States

Abstract

Sharp increases in “child migrants” from Central America detained at the US border in 2014 brought unprecedented levels of attention to long extant social and political issues perceived as causing youth migration. While governments on both sides of the US border faced criticism over responses to the migration “crisis,” the presumed causes of this migration presented in US media discourses went largely unquestioned. This article presents data collected in June 2015 from in-depth interviews with Guatemalan and transnational non-governmental organization (NGO) staff, scholars, lawyers, and activists in order to understand the complex interpretations of child migration by NGO actors in Guatemala. Findings illustrate how NGOs may selectively draw on the power of prevailing media narratives to buttress ideological and programmatic goals while simultaneously contesting how the same media depictions obscure the lived realities of migrants. We consider the transnational information politics of representations of “child migration” across government, media, and civil society sectors and the critical role of NGOs in articulating the complex realities faced by populations vulnerable to migration. © 2017, International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University.

Author Keywords

Guatemala NGOs Media Youth migration Transnational information politics

Index Keywords

ideology Guatemala [Central America] immigrant young population governance approach border region Mass Media nongovernmental organization United States migration
Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85020251958&doi=10.1007%2fs11266-017-9890-9&partnerID=40&md5=29ae07b0cebfcfe5d31185d5a54ad604
DOI: 10.1007/s11266-017-9890-9
ISSN: 09578765
Original Language: English