Human displacement and social recognition: the working conditions and relations of refugees and displaced people in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract This research analyzes the process of inclusion and social recognition of migrants in a Brazilian city. The study presents a report of the demands from migrants in the context of a host project carried out at a Brazilian public university regarding their insertion in the world of work and in Brazilian higher education, highlighting their difficulties and expressions of suffering. Documentary research was used based on the analysis of qualitative data collected from about 300 interviews and over 1000 individual and group psychosocial consultations carried out with migrants in the city of Curitiba-PR. As a theoretical framework we adopted the category of “social recognition” proposed by Nancy Fraser (2008a) based on the debate with Axel Honneth (2009), and inspired by the category “struggle for recognition,” by Hegel (2008). Results point to the precarious inclusion of migrants in the labor market, with evident social injustice and psychological suffering.