Society for Applied Anthropology Conference

This past week, I was in Mérida, México at the SfAA meetings. I co-organized a panel with my colleague Maria Claudia Duque Paramo, who is based at the U Pontifica Javeriana in Bogotá Colombia. Our panel title was: "Vulnerabilities and Exclusions in Global Migration research: ideologies, Practices, and Interventions with Latin American and Caribbean Migrant-Sending Families", and we had a strong set of papers focusing on the experiences of migration for families in sending communities in Colombia, Mexico, and Nicaragua. My paper was titled: "Abuelas and Abandonment: Exploring the Impacts of Mother Migration on Intergenerational Caregiving in Nicaraguan Sending Families" and I used the opportunity to talk about the challenges of recognizing the emotional consequences of mother migration for the abuelas who often assume caregiving of children left behind while not blaming mother migrants for leaving/migrating. We had a fantastic discussant: Dr. Ann Miles of Western Michigan U, and her comments along with our discussion and our conversation into lunch afterwards with all the panelists gave me a lot to think about, and to continue to work on in my next months of fieldwork. I'm glad I went to these conferences, but I'm tired of traveling and looking forward to getting back into my routine of work and life in Managua, where I hear temperatures are hitting record highs!