Households in Transit: Food Security Strategies Among Migrants in Transit Through Mexico

This project studies the different strategies employed by migrants, including both Mexican nationals and international migrants, as they pass through Mexican territory. It seeks to identify the individual strategies of migrants to access food, but it also seeks to understand the different formal and informal spaces (institutions, gatherings, social groups) to which they belong and which mediate their access to food during the transit period. The objective of this study is twofold. First, to characterize the different types of social and institutional configurations that allow migrants on the move to respond to food insecurity, including individual, familiar and collective strategies. Second, to characterize the strategies of civil society actors involved in the humanitarian response to respond to migrants’ food-related needs. The research centers on the following questions: How do migrants of different groups (Mexican and non-Mexican, deported, displaced and economic migrants) describe and experience food insecurity on the move? What kinds of strategies and resources do migrants turn to in order to access food? What sites and institutional spaces appear as key nodes in food procurement strategies of migrants? How do these sites organise the provision of food for migrants? The study focuses on three key sites in the Mexican migrant route, Tapachula, Tijuana, and Mexico City. Each case will include ethnographic observation/field visits, semi-structured interviews and quantitative surveys to sites where migrants congregate in each city.