Dissertation Research: Before the Country Ceases to Exist: Mobilizing Against Migration in El Salvador

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Graduate student Joseph L. Wiltberger, under the supervision of Dr. Arturo Escobar, will undertake research on an emerging trend in countries with high rates of out migration. This trend is the rise of groups that collectively work toward constructing viable alternatives to migration and alternative forms of development, despite state-led strategies to facilitate migration, remittances, and other forms of development.Wiltberger will examine the situation in El Salvador as a test case. His field research will be multi-sited. Research will be conducted in both El Salvador and the United States. Data collection will focus on a region in northern El Salvador with a high rate of emigration and on the region's substantial migrant population in the Washington, D. C., area. A mix of qualitative research methods will be employed, including archival research, semi-structured interviews with migrants and community organizers, community history interviews, life trajectory intereviews, and participant observation in organizations trying to provide alternatives to migration. Wiltberger will collaborate with organizations in El Salvador and Salvadoran-led organizations in the United States that are responding to the question of immigration, drawing on contacts and experience from prior fieldwork in northern El Salvador. This research is important because it will provide critical insight into the contemporary immigration situation and thus will make a contribution to the fields of migration and development studies, as well as to improving immigration policy and regulation. The research will give a unique transnational and place-of-origin perspective on the practice and politics of migration. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.