Imaginarios y representaciones en torno a las migraciones : Interconexiones a partir de México y Colombia

Abstract

Research on social imaginaries and representations has been configured in such a way that, currently, it already provides a rich foundation for investigating and theorizing about migration processes. We know that sociocultural phenomena—everything that falls under the umbrella of human understanding—can be read and understood from the kaleidoscopic conformation of social reality shared in a given time and place. This is a set of imaginaries, which, to a large extent, drives people who undertake migration or human mobility. Elements related to well-being, access to progress, and quality of life, or what, for these people before their arrival, the destination they are traveling to represents, drive their actions, allowing, but also compelling: compelling them to understand social reality, assuming and internalizing it in a specific way and not in others. Because it's not so much about the phenomenon itself, but rather how it impacts people's consciousness and ways of imagining and representing the world, the way it is read, the range of possibilities that opens up or is restricted by such a reading, and the actions actually undertaken that interact with that reality, in turn generating new readings.