The Making of Migration Trails in the Americas: Ethnographic Network Tracing of Haitians on the Move

Abstract

AbstractMigrant vulnerability often begins at home, signalling to governments and communities in transit and destination countries that they are people who are unprotected and easy to exploit. Haiti, in many ways, epitomises this continuum of intersectional inequities which create a path dependency for vulnerability. This chapter is based on a multidisciplinary, mixed methods study that included ethnographic network tracing to capture how Haiti’s most educated youths, the talent Haiti needs to rebuild its institutions and the country, are caught on different migrant trails across the Americas. We use the concept of “circulation” to frame these fluid patterns of migration. On these constantly changing trails, Haitians on the move—already unprotected and deprived of basic rights at home—carry their path dependency to complex vulnerability across the Americas where they experience unequal access to rights and social protection.