Narrative Worldviews of Central American Migration: A Multi-vantage Approach

The flashpoints of migration coming from the Northern Triangle (NT) of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras demonstrate the immense challenges facing the modern nation-state system. As the world's population becomes more mobile, digitally interconnected, and more capable of giving voice to the individual self, the structures of society and governance that catalyze, exacerbate, and fail to meet gross abuses and inequalities are increasingly laid bare. Plumbing such insights and voices, this research presents a larger picture of migration that forces the reimagination of common narratives and outlines how nation-states can more intentionally interact cooperatively to negate a growing crisis.

The perspectives offered in this work come from 40 interviews with migrants, law enforcement officers, journalists, filmmakers, policy experts, vocational workers, shelter workers, migration lawyers, missionaries, academics, and non-profits; people from the NT region, people from the US, people in the ivory tower and those who put their lives very much at risk on the ground. The work also examines 50,000+ news media articles from the US, Mexico, and the NT and over 50 policy briefs detailing challenges and possible solutions to mass irregular migration. The data collected cuts across political and economic borders in order to map out a comprehensive set of narratives addressing migration holistically. A unique aspect of the data is the inclusion of policy data in the analysis, which has its own distinct narrative vantage. It is our hope that the book informs better policies that help build more vibrancy and safety throughout the Americas.