EXCHANGE Migrancy in the Global Market of Care between Spain and Bolivia EXPERIENCES OF EXPERIENCES OF EXPECTATIONS AND AND EXPECTATIONS INGRID JERVE RAMSØY DISSERTATION: MIGRATION, URBANISATION, AND SOCIETAL CHANGE INGRID JERVE RAMSØY EXPECTATIONS AND MALMÖ UNIVERSITY 2019 EXPERIENCES OF EXCHANGE EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF EXCHANGE Dissertation series in Migration, Urbanisation, and Societal Change Doctoral dissertation in International Migration and Ethnic Relations Department of Global Political Studies Facultry of Culture and Society For electronic version of the dissertation: muep.mau.se © Copyright Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy, 2019 Cover illustration by Julián Szlagowski ISBN 978-91-7877-022-9 (print) ISBN 978-91-7877-023-6 (pdf) Printed by Holmbergs, Malmö 2019 INGRID JERVE RAMSØY EXPECTATIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF EXCHANGE Migrancy in the Global Market of Care between Spain and Bolivia ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Malmö University, 2019 ! Faculty of Culture and Society ! Dissertation series in Migration, Urbanisation, and Societal Change 1. Henrik Emilsson, Paper Planes: Labour Migration, Integration Policy and the State, 2016. 2. Inge Dahlstedt, Swedish Match? Education, Migration and Labour Market Integration in Sweden, 2017. 3. Claudia Fonseca Alfaro, The Land of the Magical Maya: Colonial Legacies, Urbanization, and the Unfolding of Global Capitalism, 2018. 4. Malin Mc Glinn, Translating Neoliberalism. The European Social Fund and the Governing of Unemployment and Social Exclusion in Malmö, Sweden, 2018. 5. Martin Grander, For the Benefit of Everyone? Explaining the Significance of Swedish Public Housing for Urban Housing Inequality, 2018. 6. Rebecka Cowen Forssell, Cyberbullying: Transformation of Working Life and its Boundaries, 2019. 7. Christina Hansen, Solidarity in Diversity: Activism as a Pathway of Migrant Emplacement in Malmö, 2019 8. Maria Persdotter, Free to Move Along: The Urbanisation of Cross-Border Mobility Controls – The Case of Roma “EU-migrants” in Malmö, 2019 9. Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy, Expectations and Experiences of Exchange: Migrancy in the Global Market of Care between Spain and Bolivia, 2019 ! Til pappa, og til Sol CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................. XV PREFACE: GLADYS’ WAY INTO MIGRANCY .................. XXI 1. TELLING STORIES ......................................................... 2 Introduction .................................................................. 2 So, then, what is this story about? ........................... 3 Field of Study: The Encounter between Migrancy and Care Work in the Global Market of Care ............... 5 Conceptual Premises: Care Work, Migrancy, Market .......................................................................... 6 Research Problem and Aims ..................................... 10 Research Questions .................................................. 13 Empirical Material ...................................................... 13 Structure of Thesis ..................................................... 14 2. LOCATING THE FIELD: RESEARCH CONTEXTS AND THE GLOBAL MARKET OF CARE BETWEEN SPAIN AND BOLIVIA ......................................................... 18 Introduction ................................................................ 18 The Geographies of Gladys’ Life ............................... 19 Bolivia: Colonialism and Coloniality in the Construction of Migrancy ........................................... 21 Fieldsites in Bolivia .................................................... 25 Santa Cruz de la Sierra ......................................... 26 El Torno ................................................................. 27 Vallegrande ............................................................ 30 Cochabamba ......................................................... 33 La Paz and El Alto ................................................. 34 Migration from Bolivia ................................................ 36 Remittances to Bolivia ........................................... 38 Spain and (Im)migration ............................................ 39 ‘Feminized’ Migration from Bolivia to Spain? ......... 41 Care as Feminine .................................................. 42 Care and Welfare in Spain and the Basque Country .................................................................. 43 Bolivian Immigration to Spain and the Basque Country .................................................................. 46 The Basque Country as Migration Context ............ 46 Bilbao and the Basque Country as Destinations for Migration ..................................... 47 The Colonial Politics of Geographical Naming .......... 51 Concluding Remarks: Contextualizing the Field ........ 54 3. GUIDING SCARS: EXPERIENCE, POSITIONALITY, ETHNOGRAPHY ............................................................... 56 Introduction: The Significance of our Scars ............... 56 Contextualizing Migration and Migrancy: Race Class, and Gender in Spain ....................................... 59 The (Invisible) Migrancy of la Chica ...................... 61 Experiencing Difference ........................................ 63 Delineating the Field: Texts, Contexts, and Relationships ............................................................. 64 Selecting and Presenting the Material ................... 66 The Social Spaces of my Field .............................. 67 Negotiating Boundaries: The Body and Subjectivity in the Field .............................................. 69 Implications of Falling Apart in the Field ................ 70 Subjective Experiences and Oscillating Relations of Power ................................................ 71 Gender, Age, and Sex in the Field ........................ 72 ‘Friendships’, Ethics, and Reciprocity in Ethnographic Fieldwork ............................................. 75 Expectations of Reciprocity and Social Differentiation ........................................................ 78 Race and Gender in Postcolonial Bolivia .............. 79 Rapport, Race, and Loyalty in Organizations ........ 81 Building and Sustaining Research Relationships through Reciprocity ......................... 81 Bordering and Bridging through Language and Translations ............................................................... 83 Linguistic Hierarchies ............................................. 84 Language as Geographical Marker ....................... 86 Concluding Remarks: Ethnography as Experience, Contextualization, and Translation ......... 87 4. GUIDING STARS: THEORY, CONCEPTS, EPISTEMOLOGY ............................................................... 90 Introduction: Vantage Points ...................................... 90 Migration, (Im)mobility, Migrancy ............................... 91 Making Meaning of Migration and Mobility ............ 94 Migration and (Im)mobility as Global Connections ........................................................... 95 Localizing Migration ............................................... 98 Migration and Coloniality ....................................... 99 Remittances and the Economization of Migration Research .............................................. 102 Decolonizing Migration: Modernity and Abjection .............................................................. 103 Migrancy and Migrated People ............................ 105 Women’s Role in Capitalism .................................... 107 Global Care Chains and Connections of Care ......... 108 The Spanish Care Work Sector and its Global Connections ......................................................... 110 Cornerstones of Care .......................................... 112 ‘Feminization’ and Female-led Migration ............. 115 ‘Crises’ of Care and Western Epistemological Dichotomization ................................................... 116 Care, Age, and Dependent People ...................... 117 Men and Masculinities as Part of the Equation .... 118 Complexities and Power Relations Beyond the Linearity of Chains: A Global Market of Care ...... 118 Expanding the Global Care Chains Framework: Contributing to the Valuation of Care Work ............................................................ 121 Economic Anthropology and Practices of Exchange ................................................................. 122 Circulation of Gifts and Commodities .................. 122 Exchange through Reciprocal Relations in the Global Market of Care ......................................... 123 Building Reciprocal Relations through Time: The Global Market of Care as a Moral Economy? ............................................................ 124 Controversies of Gift Theory ................................ 125 Value in Exchange as Practice ............................ 127 Concluding Remarks ............................................... 129 5. THE MEANINGS OF MIGRATION: GENDERED AND COLONIAL SCRIPTING OF MIGRANCY ........................... 130 Introduction .............................................................. 131 Desire, Difference, Abjection: The Gendered Coloniality of Being and Becoming the ‘Other’ through Migrancy ..................................................... 133 Everyday Movement towards Care Work and Migrancy .................................................................. 137 Escaping Masculinity: Gendered Practices of Bearing Violence ...................................................... 141 Love, Desirability, and Scripts of Violence .......... 142