Navigating Care in the Assemblage of (im)Mobilities: Social Protection Strategies Among Latin American Transnational Families in the Post-Pandemic Period

Abstract

This article analyses the social protection strategies that Latin American transnational families have deployed to cope with the new regime of (im)mobilities that emerged after the COVID-19 crisis. It reflects on how the pandemic has restructured the articulation of the family welfare model and the migration regime in Spain. From a theoretical point of view, it combines the analysis of family strategies of “transnational social protection” with the approach of spatial and social (im)mobilities. The article also includes a multilevel analysis (macro, meso, micro) of the connections between care and migration. A mixed methodology was used: (1) the exploitation of secondary sources to show the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on Latin American immigrant families in Spain; and (2) an analysis of ethnographic material consisting of in-depth interviews (n = 41) with transnational families (n = 13) whose members reside both in Spain (n = 27) and their countries of origin (n = 14). The results show that after the COVID-19 crisis, an “assemblage of spatial and social (in)mobilities” was generated for the immigrant population. They highlight the social blockages that the immigrant population had to face: legal, residential, occupational, and care, and also how informal arrangements to solve these immobilities are led by women. Families who were further along in the migration cycle or who had social capital (relatives in Spain) were less affected by the impact of the crisis.