"Mujeronas": Photo and Voice to migrant women in Montevideo

Photovoice is a visual ethnographic method that aims to identify issues in communities and enhance community-based solutions by “entrusting cameras to the hands of people to enable them to act as recorders, and potential catalysts for change, in their own communities” (Wang & Burris, 1997, p. 369)

During three weeks, Dora, Ale, Karo, and Estefanie, followed certain photography tasks that led them into documenting their life and finding new scopes and perspectives for the question: "what is to be a migrant women in Uruguay?

The themes or questions followed through each week were:

What are the spaces I inhabit?

Who am I in these spaces?

How do I feel in them?

The title of “mujeronas” came after our first meeting. During our ice breaker activity, a conversation started on what means to specifically be a woman and migrant. One participant, Nieves, said that throughout Latin America there is a perception of women being “Mujeronas” (big women). “Women are in general seen as they can do everything,  and when migrating that intensifies, we work, take care of the home, migrate with children to a place we do not know..”. When I decided to start this photovoice project, it was to bring this perspective to the table, of the many ways in which migration intensifies many of the existing responsibilities of women while also creating new ones. The concept of “mujeronas” and this project, in general, bring to the table a conversation on resilience from a womanhood perspective and the double burden of being women. How these women keep going besides everything because they have a lot on their backs; how they traveled with families, how they were cheated by peers on their journey, or how today they deal with exhausting schedules while also trying to find a home in Uruguay.

The workshop started with 14 women, from which 6 stayed and 4 decided to participate in the publication of the results. The invitation was to all migrant women, immigrants, emigrants, or returned migrants. Most of them came from Venezuela but one Cuban and an Uruguayan emigrant. The stories of how and why they migrated differed immensely but also coincided in many ways, such as in the struggle on who to trust, on building confidence and finding home in this new place. Each participant decided to allow to share their names and their description in a publication that will be coming in the month of April.

While listening to the presentation of our last photos, there were pieces of paper on the table to write and brainstorm together the topics that kept coming throughout the presentations. The recurring topics that we chose as definers of their work were: temporality, finding the home, "mujeronas", and "what keeps us going".

To migrate is a story of movement, of strength, is an act of rebellion. Through these workshops; we were able to build a community from a shared understanding of what it feels like to migrate alone. Even within the difference of stories and struggles that each of us brought to each session with them, we were able to agree that we took a rough path, sometimes because we wanted and others because they needed it. To migrate makes you feel the streets different, makes you see yourself differently. One of my biggest takeaways from this series of workshops is my own understanding of myself as a migrant in this world, but also the interconnectedness that a migrant woman across the world can have with me here today.

The main idea of Photovoice is to narrate what the picture represents to the person taking it and show that narration with the pictures. These results will be shown through a collaborative piece between all participants, but meanwhile, they agreed with me sharing some of their favorite pictures until then.

I hope to update you all soon in the publication of the photovoice gallery, meanwhile you can connect with me through:

email: j_lechini@coloradocollege.edu

linkedIn: Julieta Lechini