Browsing by Person "Zapata, Gisela P."

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Migrants’ entangled socio-political and biological lives during the COVID-19 emergency in Brazil
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-09-04) Castro, Flávia Rodrigues; Zapata, Gisela P.; Vera Espinoza, Marcia;
For migrants in Brazil, the COVID-19 global health crisis meant a considerable worsening of living conditions, with increased basic material needs. The reduction of individuals' existence to the mere search for survival had important repercussions on the activities of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the country, whose work became increasingly focused on the distribution of emergency assistance for these populations. Drawing on 25 interviews with actors from CSOs, this paper unpacks the entanglement between the political and the biological aspects of migrants' lives. It argues that the pandemic brought to the fore the prominence of biological life to the detriment of migrants’ political and social lives in humanitarian responses to the health crisis. In this context, CSOs working with migrant populations in Brazil were pushed to reaffirm this dichotomy, while also contesting and reminding us that the impoverishment of migrants’ political and social lives can endanger the biological life that they meant to prioritise.
Migration, Pandemic and Responses from the Third Sector: Lessons from Brazil and India [Report]
(Queen Mary University of London, 2021) Nair, Parvati; Vera Espinoza, Marcia; Zapata, Gisela P.; Tiwary, Smita; Castro, Flavia R.; Nizami, Arsala; Jorgensen, Nuni; Yadav, Abhishek; Oza, Ekta; Khan, Feroz; Ranjan, Rakesh; Zocchi, Benedetta; Barve, Suyash; Barraco, Maria
Mobility in immobility: Latin American migrants trapped amid COVID-19
(openDemocracy Foundation for the Advancement of Global Education, 2020-05-26) Vera Espinoza, Marcia; Zapata, Gisela P.; Gandini, Luciana
States urgently need to rethink their individual responses to COVID-19 and coordinate a collective approach to include and protect all people living in their territories.
Tech tools have helped Brazilian civil society support migrants during COVID, but they are no substitute for lasting change [Blog Post]
(LSE, 2021-05-24) Vera Espinoza, Marcia; Zapata, Gisela P.; de Castro, Flavia R.
Civil society organisations have provided vital support to migrant and refugee populations in Brazil during the COVID-19 crisis. Many have been forced to adapt their programmes to cover growing demand for emergency aid, with greater use of technology enabling a new hybrid way of working. But for all the problems it solves, tech can also create new ones, and ultimately it is no substitute for more durable solutions, write Marcia Vera Espinoza (Queen Mary University of London), Gisela P. Zapata (Federal University of Minas Gerais), and Flavia R. Castro (PUC-Rio).
Towards a typology of social protection for migrants and refugees in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic
(Springer, 2021-11-16) Vera Espinoza, Marcia; Prieto Rosas, Victoria; Zapata, Gisela P.; Gandini, Luciana; Fernández de la Reguera, Alethia; Herrera, Gioconda; López Villami, Stéphanie; Zamora Gómez, Cristina María; Blouin, Cécile; Montiel, Camila; Cabezas Gálvez, Gabriela; Palla, Irene
The COVID-19 health crisis has put to the test Latin America’s already precarious social protection systems. This paper comparatively examines what type of social protection has been provided, by whom, and to what extent migrant and refugee populations have been included in these programmes in seven countries of the region during the COVID-19 pandemic, between March and December 2020. We develop a typology of models of social protection highlighting the assemblages of actors, different modes of protection and the emerging migrants’ subjectification in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay in relation to Non-Contributory Social Transfer (NCST) programmes and other actions undertaken by state and non-state actors. The analysis is based on 85 semi-structured interviews with representatives of national and local governments, International Organisations, Civil Society Organisations, and migrant-led organisations across 16 cities, and a systematic review of regulatory frameworks in the country-case studies. The proposed typology shows broad heterogeneity and complexity regarding different degrees of inclusion of migrant and refugee populations, particularly in pre-existing and new NCST programmes. These actions are furthering notions of migrant protection that are contingent and crisis-driven, imposing temporal limitations that often selectively exclude migrants based on legal status. It also brings to the fore the path-dependent nature of policies and practices of exclusion/inclusion in the region, which impact on migrants’ effective access to social and economic rights, while shaping the broader dynamics of migration governance in the region.
Weakening Practices Amidst Progressive Laws: Refugee Governance in Latin America during COVID-19
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-10-05) Zapata, Gisela P.; Gandini, Luciana; Vera Espinoza, Marcia; Prieto Rosas, Victoria
This paper develops a comparative assessment of the state of asylum in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. It argues that an accelerated weakening of refugee protection, exacerbated during the pandemic, has taken place across the region. Faced with growing mixed flows, the region’s refugee framework has either been used as an ad hoc regularization mechanism or not been broadly used. Also, pandemic mitigation measures have further weakened access to asylum, through militarization and border closures, and a platitude of deterrence practices. These regressive practices may result in the undermining, abandonment and/or replacement of the region’s widely praised refugee governance.