Migratory Stress, Health and Gender: An Intersectional Analysis of the Ecuadorean Case

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this chapter is to explore the gender dynamics of the juncture of migration and health in the case of Ecuadorean migrations to Spain, the United States, and back.

Methodology/Approach

By building on a feminist intersectional take on the social determination of health as defined by Latin American critical epidemiology, the project was designed within an activist research framework, and data were collected transnationally from 2015 to 2019 via surveys, individual and group interviews, participant observation in health and migration workshops and trainings for migrant communities, advocates, and health practitioners.

Findings

Our study identified and conceptualized various health processes and psycho-sociocultural coping mechanisms that migrants and relatives traversed and employed and pointed to how they manifested their agency in sustaining, reinforcing, and challenging dominant heteropatriarchal gender regimes.

Research Limitations/Implications

While the findings cannot be generalized to all Ecuadorean migrants given sampling limitations, our research can help migrant communities further understand how their health and well-being may be affected by migration and, in turn, take precautionary and restorative measures.

Originality/Value of Paper

The combination of various critical theories allowed us to uncover how migration as a risk factor affected the health of migrants, nonmigrating relatives and returnees in a nuanced and complex manner that traversed disciplinary silos and challenged both the mainstream biomedical approach, which typically exoticize, demean, and/or marginalize migrant health, and the literature's tendency to code migrants as victims as opposed to recognizing their protagonism.

Citation

Villalón, R. and Kraft, S. (2022), "Migratory Stress, Health and Gender: An Intersectional Analysis of the Ecuadorean Case", Kronenfeld, J.J. (Ed.) Health and Health Care Inequities, Infectious Diseases and Social Factors (Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol. 39), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 89-106. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0275-495920220000039007