Aquí y allá: un estudio de caso sobre la construcción de la identidad social y lingüística en las narrativas de dos migrantes temporales mexicanos

Abstract

This research arises from the need to understand what happens to all those people who have decided to establish a lifestyle between two nations by choosing to work abroad. This is why we have approached one of the most common migratory phenomena existing today among young population. In our case, we have focused on summer camp jobs, such as counselors and kitchen staff where the participants have worked. Both are examples of what we have called temporary migration. Temporary migration is a process that involves moving from one place to another, between the place of origin (the place of departure) and the place of immersion (the place of destination) for a period, due to work, personal or academic reasons. Consequently, being a constant displacement, it implies identity shifts (Grondin, 2015) in the way a person embodies his or her identity. This study presents two Mexican temporary migrants, Mariana, and Ramon, who have immersed themselves in the double dynamic by choosing a job abroad in Canada. Thus, the research question we seek to answer is: how do temporary migrants construct their social and linguistic identity in their narratives? This is related to the following objective: to describe how the social and linguistic identity of temporary migrants is transformed from displacement between Mexico and Canada. We employed analytic and cognitive tools, such as identity frames, positioning, core values and identity shift. For this purpose, through a case study (Guillham, 2001 [2000]), we inquired about the way in which both participants construct and transform their social and linguistic identity through three different cognitive tools. The first tool is an informative questionnaire elaborated in Google Forms as a means of approaching and obtaining general and contact information about the participants. Subsequently, the elaboration of narratives, elicited through an ekphrastic narrative, the ekphrasis (Alberdi Soto, 2016) is a tool that develops the cognitive process between the representations of the past and the present from the presentation of a photograph, those help them to present the identity turning points originate from such movement. Finally, the third tool is an interview as an autobiographical space (García, 2014 and Arfuch, 2002), that is, authentic environment developed for a most detailed and in-depth narrative of each of the life stories between here and there. The analysis model is based on four different theories: frames (Lakoff, 2010), communicative, relational and identity space (CRIS) (Pfleger, 2021), positioning (Davis and Harré, 2007) and core values (Secombe and Zajda, 1999). Based on these analytical tools, we were able to highlight the identity shifts (Grondin, 2015), positioning, and core values of each participant.