The Politics of Care and Criar la Vida: Precarious and Non Status Latin American Women Building their Lives in Toronto

Abstract

My research explores and maps out the resistance processes and territories of racialized, Latin American migrant women with precarious or non-status while examining their settlement efforts, survival, and political actions in the Toronto Area. This research aims to bring academic visibility to the agency mutual aid and community building and networks of support that, against all odds, allows them to build their own version of citizenship and belonging despite restrictive migration systems. Utilizing a qualitative methodological approach, my research weaves deep thematic narrative life histories collected through extensive qualitative interview and a critical social cartography developed during collaborative focus groups to map the counter-geographies of Toronto that precariousstatus migrant women inhabit. My research pays attention to the narratives of the migrant women to understand how they resist these processes in their aim remain autonomous and citizens of a city on their own terms.