The case of forced migration to Brazil

Mariana Aydos, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)
Rosana Baeninger, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP)

This analysis is based on an original research carried on in 2007 with the refugee population in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The main objective of this survey was to map the life conditions of the refugee population in Brazil based on its social-demographic characteristics and on the access to governmental programs. 280 families in both cities were interviewed on the bases of a 14 pages formulary. This Survey took the family as the analysis base and made possible for us to acknowledge the forced migration as a modality of international migration, as well as the migratory trajectories of this group and the social networks present in the trajectories. This study lays on the idea that the theoretical basis on refugee studies can be better complemented if we situate them inside theories of cognate areas of the international migration.