Overview

Migration journeys are arduous, with migrants tormented by risk, abuse, threats, and xenophobia. Shelters, staffed by humanitarian workers and volunteers, provide safe spaces for those in transit. Shelter on the Journey examines how these sites, often faith-based civil society associations, create solidarity and help politicize migrants, giving them a sense of themselves as an empowered, rights-holding people. Solano, who volunteered at shelters in Mexico, chronicles the activity in three of the nearly 100 shelters along a unique humanitarian trail that many Central Americans take to reach the United States. She outlines the constraints faced by these sites and their potential to create social transformation and considers how and why migration security is currently framed and managed as both a criminal and humanitarian issue. Shelter on the Journey explores the politics of the shelters, their social world, and the dynamics of charity and solidarity, as well as the need for humanitarian assistance and advocacy for dignified and free transit migration.

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9781439921524

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Reviews

“On their perilous journey north to the United States, migrants find dozens of welcoming shelters that provide temporary safety and comfort. Priscilla Solano’s ethnography offers a poignant and compelling picture of this humanitarian resistance to the growing global divide and the political violence of borders.”-Didier Fassin, author of Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present “Shelter on the Journey captures the contradictions of humanitarian projects with subtlety and humanity. Through a focus on migrant shelters, Solano offers a novel perspective on the complex relationship between humanitarian work and activism, with persistent attention on the broader systems that consistently criminalize migrants. An excellent contribution to migration studies, humanitarian and charity scholarship, and beyond.”-Cecilia Menjivar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and coauthor of Immigrant Families ""Solano argues that the work of shelters in addressing the basic needs of migrants can imply support for their flight from economic precarity and personal danger; some shelter leaders and personnel have gone further, explicitly defending the human right to seek safety and security through movement. The book is strongest in its presentation of fieldwork findings, which, while dated, trace patterns of abuse that have only worsened over time.... Summing Up: Recommended.""-Choice ""Shelter on the Journey expands our understanding of the critical role that humanitarian actors play in shaping irregular migration through Mexico. The book contributes a rich examination of how efforts to 'dignify transit' work within but also subvert Western humanitarianism and state border securitization efforts.""-Law & Society Review ""[A] valuable account of the shelter system that provides migrants who are in transit in Mexico with a place to sleep, a hot meal, and an oasis of care during otherwise challenging journeys.... [B]ased on impressive and challenging research.... Shelter on the Journey is valuable reading.""-Racial and Ethnic Studies

“On their perilous journey north to the United States, migrants find dozens of welcoming shelters that provide temporary safety and comfort. Priscilla Solano’s ethnography offers a poignant and compelling picture of this humanitarian resistance to the growing global divide and the political violence of borders.”—Didier Fassin, author of Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present “Shelter on the Journey captures the contradictions of humanitarian projects with subtlety and humanity. Through a focus on migrant shelters, Solano offers a novel perspective on the complex relationship between humanitarian work and activism, with persistent attention on the broader systems that consistently criminalize migrants. An excellent contribution to migration studies, humanitarian and charity scholarship, and beyond.”—Cecilia Menjivar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Professor of Sociology at UCLA, and coauthor of Immigrant Families ""Solano argues that the work of shelters in addressing the basic needs of migrants can imply support for their flight from economic precarity and personal danger; some shelter leaders and personnel have gone further, explicitly defending the human right to seek safety and security through movement. The book is strongest in its presentation of fieldwork findings, which, while dated, trace patterns of abuse that have only worsened over time.... Summing Up: Recommended.""—Choice ""Shelter on the Journey expands our understanding of the critical role that humanitarian actors play in shaping irregular migration through Mexico. The book contributes a rich examination of how efforts to 'dignify transit' work within but also subvert Western humanitarianism and state border securitization efforts.""—Law & Society Review ""[A] valuable account of the shelter system that provides migrants who are in transit in Mexico with a place to sleep, a hot meal, and an oasis of care during otherwise challenging journeys.... [B]ased on impressive and challenging research.... Shelter on the Journey is valuable reading.""—Racial and Ethnic Studies

Author Information

Priscilla Solano is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Lund University in Sweden.

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