Venezuelan Women in Peru: at the Borders of Nationality, Gender, and Survival Migration

How is the migration experience of Venezuelan women in Peru different from their male counterparts? Where are Venezuelan women employed? How does their gender position them in the labor force and in Peruvian society? To what degree do social-racial hierarchies configure their integration and opportunities for socioeconomic mobility? Based on the early phases of qualitative research on Venezuelan women’s migration experience in Peru, we draw from 15 short surveys and in-depth interviews with women in Lima between 2018 and 2019, national data, and migration literature. We analyze the intersection of a triple jeopardy—nationality, gender, and condition as survival migrants—that is casting Venezuelan women in informal, precarious, feminized, and racialized work in Peru. Likewise, we observe women’s resistance to a recipient country culture that is deeply rooted in socioracial hierarchies. We argue that these migrant women are vulnerable to inferiorized socioeconomic positioning in this situation, and aim is to contribute to a conversation about how south-south migration and gender combine with the socioeconomic and cultural context to determine available options for survival migrant women.