A Migratory Ecosystem: Legibility, Visibility, and the Role of Organizations in Ecuador

With the highest number of displaced persons in history, migrants must navigate complicated systems to access rights and social services. In this article, we provide the perspective of organizational actors providing educational services to refugee and migrant populations in Ecuador. We draw on an analysis of 20 interviews with key informants to examine how global and national refugee and migratory policies shape the work of organizations. We find that organizations play an important role in navigating global and national policies around migration and education and in rendering the policies legible and the migrant populations visible. In addition, these organizations adapt an intersectoral approach, which points to the potential of education as an enabling right and also as an important link to other social services. We propose a migratory ecosystem framework for understanding the coexistence and overlap of multiple legal and policy categories and the implications for accessing social services.