Podcast, Social Justice

Women, Work, More: Migrant Women & Transnational Loving — with Evelyn Encalada Grez

November 18, 2021

Below the Radar · Migrant Women & Transnational Loving — with Evelyn Encalada Grez

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A transnational labour scholar, co-founder of Justicia for Migrant Workers, and assistant professor from SFU's Labour Studies Program, Evelyn Encalada Grez joins this episode of Women, Work, More to speak about migrant women and their experiences of transnational loving.

Evelyn explores the pains that accompany migration, from separating families to the often temporary loves that migrant women find while working within Canada. Despite these pains, Evelyn speaks about the forms of agency that migrant women enact throughout their migration — that often revolves around reasserting their power over their bodies and sexualities.

As the episode continues, Evelyns speaks about her past projects that have aided in re-empowering migrant workers and migrant women within their migration. She also shares the changes that need to be made to undo the exploitation inherent within temporary labour migration programs.

Throughout the episode we hear quotes from migrant women whom Evelyn has encountered and interviewed as part of her research. These quotes came from Evelyn’s transcribed interviews and are voiced by readers in both English and Spanish. These do not feature the voices of the migrant women who initially spoke these words in order to maintain their anonymity.

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About Our Guest

Evelyn Encalada Grez

Dr. Evelyn Encalada Grez is a transnational labour scholar, organizer and co-founder of Justice for Migrant Workers and Assistant Professor in Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University.

She has worked with migrant farmworkers for two decades across rural Canada, Mexico and Guatemala. She has mobilized her research in various venues such as the UN in New York, the National Autonomous University of Mexico and collaborated in various multidisciplinary projects to amplify the voices of migrant workers. Her research has focused on the experiences of Mexican migrant women who forge transnational livelihoods between Canada and Mexico. Currently, she is conducting research on the effects of the pandemic on migrant farmworkers within a transnational perspective.