Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
“Living and Working in Borderlands: The Gendered Impacts of Transnational Migration
on the 'left behind' in Guatemala”
Academia, especially studies that focus on migration, have a long tradition in examining,
understanding and explaining the different aspects associated with the movement of people.
These have mainly focused on the crossing of borders, the leaving and the arrival in different
spatial regions and the adaptation of the moving people within a new environment.
However, this has led to a gap in knowledge about those that are just as affected by
intensified outmigration of others, but who a rarely taken into focus when studying the
migration phenomenon – the people that are left behind when others migrate.
The intention of my Master Thesis, and thus of my field research stay in Guatemala, was and
continues to be, to identify and explain the implications that transnational migration has on
the living- and working experiences of the people that stay behind in their communities in
Guatemala, when their co-nationals migrate to other places. In my Master Thesis I am asking
how particularly the outmigration of male adults is impacting upon the living- and working
experiences of the women that are left behind in Guatemala. Here my focus is explicitly a
gendered one because statistics not only show that mostly males emigrate from Guatemala
to foreign countries (70,5% male; cf. PNUD 2010: Guatemala) but also is it important to keep
in mind that the migration process itself is a gendered one (cf. Eberhardt/Schwenken 2010)
and therefore a study that focuses on the impacts on those that do not move, needs to ask
for its gendered roots and underlying gendered power structures, as well. In theoretical
terms I am engaging with a transnational perspective of migration that takes the “migration
– left-behind nexus” (Toyota/Yeoh/Nguyen 2007) as its foundation in order to analyze the
implications of migration on the northern border region of Guatemala, precisely the area of
Quetzaltenango. Within this framework migration implies that family members as well as
friends stay behind of those, who leave their place of origin, but that they nevertheless
remain in a close relationship with each other and thus sustain linkages over both, a long
period of time and long-distances.
Consequently my Master Thesis is highly connected to the personal experiences of the
people that live in the region. Due to the nature of the research question, as well as the fact
that I am departing from a qualitative research design, the necessity developed to engage
with field research in the area. In order to find answers to my research questions, it was thus
necessary to collect my own data. Amongst others, two reasons were most important, why I
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Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
had to realize my own study within Guatemala. First, the topic of left behind in the area of
Central America itself is only rarely researched upon in the literature and especially the
Guatemalan case seems to be rather neglected, therefore collecting primary data in the field
became a necessity. And secondly, but more importantly, in order to understand and to
solve problems that are currently affecting the countries of the Global South, like
outmigration, it was necessary to switch perspectives and to listen to the voices of the
people that have made their own real life experiences in this topic and thus to let them
explain how they are affected. In a nutshell, the reasons as well as the goal of my field
research were thus to engage with the people that live in Guatemala in order to let them
explain, if and how they are affected by outmigration.
My field research plan entailed three different forms of methods in order to conduct primary
data and to find answers to my research questions. Throughout my whole stay I made use of
the methods of field observation and informal interviews that are derived from ethnographic
studies. Here the small talks on the street or in small “tiendas” have led to a significant
amount of information about the daily customs and behavior of the people living in
Quetzaltenango. Additionally, I could observe how, for example housing has changed due to
the sending of remittances. Another example for the use of the method of observation is,
that I could recognize, how, in one small town near Quetzaltenango, outmigration is highly
valued by those that stay behind, because they had even constructed a 12 meter high
monument dedicated to “el emigrante” that was visible for everyone around town. These
observations and conversations were always noted down in a field research diary that I
continuously wrote throughout my whole stay in Guatemala. This diary will help me to
reconstruct the research situation within Guatemala more precisely, once I keep writing my
Master Thesis in Germany.
The second method I intended to use, were expert interviews. I planned to conduct these
interviews in order to find out about the migration situation in Guatemala and also in order
to embed my research in expert knowledge from within the country. Deciding upon who is
an expert is a methodological question and thus my selection will be explained more in
detail within my Master Thesis. For this report it is sufficient to explain that I conducted five
different expert interviews, of which three were women and two were men. These experts
belong to different types of organizations and come from different spatial areas,
nevertheless all were within the region of Quetzaltenango and were engaged with either
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Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
women’s questions/rights or migration and development questions. In these different
interviews I could eventually attain information concerning the living and working “rules and
regulations” that exist in the area and which will thus help me to evaluate in what manner
outmigration has impacted on this system of “usos y costumbres”. Additionally I was able to
ask more precisely about the experiences these organizations or individuals had with the
topic and if it plays an important role in their daily work. These answers will help me to find
out, whether or not organizations see a necessity in engaging with the issue of the left
behind in the area or if this topic has not yet become a point on the day to day agenda.
Lastly, I also asked for their opinion upon the impacts of male outmigration on women that
stay behind, especially wives with children. These questions were necessary in order to
receive also information about the issue, if my initial research plans, to talk to women who
have husbands abroad, would not have been able to be realized.
This leads to the last method I engaged with in my stay in Guatemala. I also conducted
several interviews with women that are left behind in Quetzaltenango. This means I
conducted narrative interviews with family members of migrants that are currently, or that
have been in the past, working and living in another country – mostly the United States of
America. Deriving from theory as well as in close consultation with my supervisor I
developed a qualitative and open questionnaire that focused primarily on the testimony and
thus on the experiences of the family members that stayed behind in Guatemala when their
husbands, brothers, or brothers-in-law had migrated to another country. I was able to
conduct in this manner different interviews and could thus get profound insights into the
thoughts and histories of those people that have a lived experience of being left behind in
their communities. The interviews were conducted in different regions of Quetzaltenango,
within the city as well as in surrounding small towns that belong to the “departamento” of
Quetzaltenango. Additionally I spoke to these people in different places, ranging from
popular cafés to their private houses. The decision where the interview took place was done
by the interviewee, if he or she invited me to his or her house, I was happy to go there, but if
a public place was preferred, which was due to different reasons, I did not intervene, either.
All, but one, of these narrative interviews were conducted with women. This is due to the
research question of my Master Thesis. In order to understand how the outmigration of
males effects the living- and working experiences in Quetzaltenango it was necessary to
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Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
listen to the narrations and perceptions of the women that have lived here in times when
their husbands, for example, had migrated to the United States.
In order to reconstruct better my activities the table in the Annex will list all of my interviews
during my field research phase in Guatemala.
Lastly I will focus in this report on the evaluation of my field research with respect to writing
my Master Thesis and additionally I draw attention to the positive as well as negative
experiences that I made during my stay here.
Initially I had planned to do an eight week internship with a small labor union that is called
Union de Trabajadores de Quetzaltenango. It turned out that I could not realize to do this
internship. There were different reasons to this problematic start in Guatemala. On the one
hand I did not realize the importance and the impact of the upcoming elections in
Guatemala (on 11th of September there was the first round of the general elections in
Guatemala, the second round of the presidential elections took place on 6th of November).
With my arrival here, I was told that working as a foreigner with a labor union in the times
before the elections was very problematic – in safety terms, because it was located in an
area that is apparently rather dangerous for foreigners, but also in terms of getting contact
into the community, which then would have been highly connected with my work of that
explicit political organization.
Fortunately, I also planned to stay some weeks within a language school that is called
“Proyecto Lingüístico Quetzalteco” (PLQ) to further deepen my knowledge of the Spanish
language before I would conduct the interviews. This not only allowed me to live within a
Guatemalan family, where I continued to live throughout the whole three months, but also
to “learn” about the Guatemalan history and society. My language school offered me the
possibilities to attend different lectures that deal with various topics that are related to the
history, society, culture and also current issues that are important in Guatemala and the
geographical region of Central America. PLQ is at the same time a social organization that is
highly linked to different societal actors and to other social organizations of the region.
Eventually I did study three weeks as a language student at PLQ and following that I worked
for two more weeks as a volunteer within the social organization of this school. During this
time I already started to do informal interviews and to start with my observations in order to
get a better picture about my research interest and to narrow down my research questions.
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Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
These first ethnographic studies helped me to get a better understanding about the current
issues that migration causes in this area of Guatemala.
After my stay with PLQ I decided to make use of the advantages of the connections that the
organization possesses. I could not only realize interviews with two different women that are
related to the school, but I also got into touch with other social organizations. These
organizations, for example, “Desgua”, “La Casa del Migrante” or “AMTEDICH” were valuable
sources of information for my Thesis as well. With members of these organizations I could
subsequently realize expert interviews. A further advantage of the connection to the school
was that I got into contact with the surrounding communities. PLQ offers trips to the local
communities and I was able to encounter people in these communities, too. One of the
towns that I first visited with the school is called Salcajá, which is one of the areas with the
highest number of male outmigration in whole Guatemala. After I had made contacts there, I
could not only realize to speak with different members of the local government, but could
also do observation, informal and narrative interviews within this town. Lastly, the
connections to the school, but as well as to the individuals of the school, started a snow ball
effect that led to the possibility of arranging many different narrative interviews with
women that were left behind and were coming from differing social and economic
backgrounds. Thus, I could finally reach the goal of listening to the voices of those people
that have lived the experiences of being left behind.
Nevertheless, I also engaged in another organization, called Nuevos Horizontes. This
organization offers help and a shelter to women that come from violent situations within
their families and seek refuge. This organization offers one of the few possibilities for
women to leave from intra-family violence and additionally maintains a daycare center for
children of working mothers. Here I worked as a volunteer for six weeks in order to get
another experience within Guatemala and also to “give something back” to the community
from which I had gained so many useful information for my Master Thesis. The linkages to
the research field that developed out of this connection were rather limited; however I think
it was very interesting and inspiring to work with Nuevos Horizontes.
With respect to the positive and negative experiences of my research here, I have to admit
that especially in the beginning it was very complicated for me to get access into the
research field and also to be taken seriously by the people that I talked to. I first had to build
some sort of reputation as a “real” researcher in order for the people to understand that I
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Dana Dülcke
Research Report: “Living and Working in Borderlands”
07.11.2011
was not only in Guatemala to do holidays or to improve my Spanish skills. The closeness of
the society, which is also reflected in the fact that I did not get entrance into many private
houses of my interviewees, as well as the negative picture that preexists about foreign
researchers, made especially the initial contacts a great challenge.
One shortcoming that I am aware of right now in my research, is reflected in the small
number of indigenous women I was able to interview. This is of course connected to the rigid
social system that exists within the indigenous groups of Guatemala, but also in the fact that
I could not reach the necessary level of confidence with the community, that they would
have allowed me more access to “the women in the houses”. The daily life of an indigenous
woman is taking place within a distinct area of the household and the market and it is very
uncommon to have relationships or any sort of contact with other people outside of the
family or the close community. The fact that I have only arranged to do interviews with three
indigenous women, even though this ethnic group makes up the majority of the Guatemalan
people, is a shortcoming of my research, which I do have to take into account. Thus, not only
the long time period that was needed in order to set up interviews, but also the fact that
often interviews did not take place for some reason or that I had to wait more than an hour
for my interviewees, were other problems I faced throughout my stay here. Nevertheless I
learned to become much more flexible and to adjust in some ways to the lifestyle of the
Guatemalan people. I also made the negative experience that members of social
organizations would promise me to do certain things or to get in touch with me, but they
would just not call me or would not answer their phone. Additionally I was told by one
organization that I could get good access to the research field through them and after
making me wait two weeks, they finally told me that they cannot help me because the topic
was too sensitive and so I did not get any further information from them.
Nonetheless, taking all my experiences into account, I am very happy with my field research
stay in Guatemala and I can definitely say that I accomplished almost everything that I had
planned. There is always something missing, but with respect to writing my Master Thesis I
am very pleased with my research process. The next steps will be to transcribe and to
analyze the interviews, which will then reveal the quality of my investigation. Yet, my
observations, the informal talks and just the sheer fact of being “in” the field, helped me
already tremendously to write my Master Thesis.
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