CALL FOR PAPERS vol. 13, no. 25 (2nd quarter de 2026)

Àgora (monographic section) dedicated to:

Migrants today: employment and life conditions, struggles, resistance and building alternatives.

Deadline for submission of originals for all sections: December 1, 2025

Publication date: second quarter of 2026

Coordination:

Nashelly Ocampo Figueroa. Lecturer and researcher. Faculty of Economics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Unidad Morelos. nashellyo@hotmail.com

Octavio Rosas Landa Ramos. Lecturer and researcher. Faculty of Economics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. orr@unam.mx

 

 

 

Description

The phenomenon of migration has spread across many of the world’s regions since the start of this century, reaching dimensions that international organisations refer to as a “humanitarian crisis” or “flooding across borders”; however, in reality such catchphrases reflect acts of symbolic, political or criminal violence against the migrant population. These new migration flows are in large part a consequence of economic, political and social breakdown in migrants’ home countries and regions, caused by the proliferation of land grabs and plundering of water, mineral and other resources that cause mass displacements of local populations, underpinned by perverse alliances between big capital, state agents and, increasingly, organised crime. Add to this the effects of the global climate crisis on cyclical temperature and rainfall patterns and relationships between species in increasingly fragile ecosystems, which also lead to mass displacements of populations, including large numbers of working age people. According to the International Organization for Migration’s 2019 report, of the more than 270 million international migrants that year, 202 million (74%) were aged between 20 and 64, of whom half were women.

International migration occurs not only between countries of the global South and North, nor from rural to urban areas. The directions of migratory flows are increasingly diverse and the relations of solidarity, conflict and mutual interdependence that their movements generate with the market, the state, the host societies, and among extremely diverse migrant groups and workers (whether organised or not) in the countries of arrival are growing ever more complex. We have observed that the vast majority of migrations are motivated by the search for better living conditions, such as a job or a better salary, while capital in the countries of arrival exploits migrant flows to attack the local organisation of workers. It is therefore relevant to consider population migrations under capitalism as migrations of workers, and it is crucial to understand them in this context.

Migrant workers’ struggles, resistance and creation of alternatives are key to building holistic alternatives (for coexistence, mutual care, legal and employment protection, and defence of rights, and to help communities thrive) in the urban or rural spaces we live in and share with the migrant population as citizens and workers. Only in this way can we overcome the multiple strategies of division that states, companies and far-right political groups impose between host country and migrant workers. Our struggle as workers for better living and working conditions is an international struggle.

General aim

This call aims to motivate reflection on the situation and resistance of migrant populations, who live in a state of increasing vulnerability and face growing violence in the regions they are leaving, on their migratory journeys and in the places where they arrive.

Thematic lines

• Employment and living conditions international migrant workers face in the cities and rural areas they arrive in.
• Economic, social, political and environmental motives driving migrations.
• How did the COVID-19 pandemic change migration processes and the employment situation for migrants?
• How do migrant workers organise their struggles and resistance in the places they arrive in? (What is their presence in self-management, cooperation, competences and solidarity?)
• Notable experiences in building economic, social and culturalalternatives from the migrant workers’ perspective.