So Who Is Building Sustainable Development? Transforming Exploitative Labour along Southern Corridors of Migration Dataset, 2017-2021

Garvey, Brian (2022). So Who Is Building Sustainable Development? Transforming Exploitative Labour along Southern Corridors of Migration Dataset, 2017-2021. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-855480

The Brazilian Amazon has long been a region of flux, of internal and transfrontier migration, often linked to extractive and mega-scale infrastructure projects. It's poorly regulated corridors for labour recruitment have been made more complex by economic depression and both market-led and authoritarian responses to humanitarian crises. Here, as migrant worker testimonies reveal, conventional distinctions between formal and informal work are over determined by local power relations with resultant super-exploitation of recently recruited workers. Mineral, construction, energy and agroindustry complexes depend upon and sustain a demand for flexible labour for projects that renew conflicts with traditional Amazonian communities. The working lives of these migrant workers, and of those communities resisting exploitation and territorial loss are the focus of this research project.

Data description (abstract)

This dataset contains a list of documents, interviews and other forms of multimedia data collected from 300 migrants. The files are in a rar format which were created for the purposes of a three year participatory research in the Amazonian region. Primary data was collected from March 2019 to June 2021. The content of interviews or pictures of refugees are sensitive and cannot be shared publicly in accordance with ESRC`s ethical approval. The participatory research aimed to investigate and transform the increasingly widespread link between the concentration of migrants in need of humanitarian protection along migration corridors in the Brazilian Amazonian region; the requirement of large and flexible workforces for large infrastructure projects including construction and agribusiness; exploitative labour conditions in these industries that that are part of ‘sustainable development’ agendas. The project engaged workers from Brazil, Haiti, Colombia, Venezuela, Senegal and various other African states in order to: document the influence of formal and informal agents on the migrant workers' journey and employment identify deficits in dignified work and social protection Collectively propose transformative solutions via a range of media; facilitate direct social dialogue between migrant workers, project partners and government, industrial, labour and non-profit agencies, at state, regional and national level

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