Fieldwork location as a point of departure for a multi-sited ethnography

My research questions shaped the selection of the place and the people to study. The area chosen was in the vicinity of Plaza de Armas in downtown Santiago.36 _{Plaza de}

Armas is known for being the main gathering point of the Peruvian community in the capital city. Deteriorated buildings surrounding Plaza de Armas have been over previous years increasingly used as residences by the Peruvian community. The shared housing unit which I chose for my fieldwork setting was located on the second floor of a building situated on Bandera Street, just a few blocks away from Plaza de Armas.

While I initially conducted my ethnography in the compound on Bandera Street, later on, I established contact with occupants of eight other buildings located in the vicinity. I extended my participant observations to these buildings and conducted a household survey among their inhabitants. This extension happened ‘naturally’ as the same migrants I was already studying put me in contact with the residents of the other buildings, people with whom they were connected through friendship and kinship relations. While the compound on Bandera Street had approximately 50 people living permanently there, the total number of adult migrants living in the eight buildings later selected summed up to 373 people. This information came out of the census I took among the migrants living in these buildings.

36 _{As it will be demonstrated further on, this area has the highest concentration of Peruvian nationals of}

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The buildings selected are included within few blocks from Plaza the Armas to the north, specifically from Santo Doming Street up to Mapocho River. To the east from Teatinos Street to

the west including Puente Street

The chosen setting proved to be representative of the larger migrant Peruvian community since people living on Bandera Street shared similar socio-economic and cultural characteristics with the migrant population living in other buildings in that area. As it became clear during the course of my fieldwork, the majority of these inhabitants originated from similar cities in Peru. Like their neighbours, residents of the compound on Bandera Street were part of the impoverished urban population living in coastal areas in northern Peru. They found migration to be the only way out of poverty. In Chile, they all live in similar conditions and occupy similar niches in the labour market. These migrants move through migratory networks, connecting people in their places of origin and destination.37 _{So when they arrive in Santiago, they often live in the same}

residential areas and the buildings inhabited by Peruvian migrants in various areas of Santiago are often in bad condition. Furthermore, similarities in terms of migrant’s patterns of collectively inhabiting run-down buildings in Santiago were further confirmed among a second group of migrants living in the district of Estación Central among whom I also conducted interviews. Other areas with high concentrations of migrants living in similar conditions, which I also had the opportunity to visit, are the districts of Independencia and Recoleta in Santiago.

The following table offers an overview of the areas in the city with higher concentrations of Peruvian nationals.

People born in Peru according to sex and palce of residence in selected districts of Santiago

Distric of residence

Men Women Men and

women Santiago Las Condes 2933 535 2917 2561 5850 3096

37 _{As Paerregaard (2003) contends the networks Peruvian have created when migrating transnationally are}

embedded in pre-existent social relations of three different kinds i) Patron client-relations used to recruit rural labour to Peru’s haciendas, mines and domestic servant industry, ii) Migration networks that grow out of the massive rural-urban migration experienced in the 20th _{century in Peru and iii) Ties of kinship}

67 Recoleta Vitacura Estacion Central Independencia Providencia Lo Barnechea La Florida Penalolen Other districts Total 736 150 679 646 387 147 498 426 3650 10787 730 1275 675 642 857 1031 614 683 4967 16952 1466 1425 1354 1288 1244 1178 1112 1109 8617 27739

Source: Martinez, J. (2003) El encanto de los datos. Sociodemografia segun el censo de 2002, CELADE/ CEPAL, Santiago.

This table shows the concentration of Peruvian migrants living in specific districts in Santiago. The figures show two clearly differentiated residential patterns. A higher concentration of women is observed in the wealthier districts of the city (Las Condes, Vitacura, Barnechea and Providencia). This pattern is explained by the work most Peruvian women do, as live-in nannies in well-off households. The district of Santiago in turn – where Plaza de Armas is located – absorbs the higher number of Peruvians from both sexes. This district as well as Independecia, Recoleta and Estacion Central are proper residential areas for Peruvian migrants.

The sites of my ethnography

There were various locations chosen to conduct my ethnography. I define location, following Gans as “a relational concept. It refers to the social spaces that make connections between users and uses” (2002:329). This is consistent with the mobile and transnational nature of the phenomenon under study. The first site chosen was a migrant housing collective, located in the compound on Bandera Street where I initially spent most of my time in the field. This was the physical residence and socio cultural space of the migrant community where most of their time outside work was spent.

A second location was Plaza de Armas and its surroundings. This area represents an ethno-territory of the Peruvian migrant community as it contains a collection of locations where migrants gather and reside. This included corners, streets used as gathering points, residences, restaurants, call centres, and a Catholic Church. In this social space, the larger community met to exchange resources and information, produce and reproduce their identity as well as create a sense of purpose. Here, too, they would define their limits as a community, acquire visibility and differentiate themselves from the Chilean society.

A third location was the district of Estación Central where I moved to in the second part of my fieldwork and as it was shown is also one area of high concentration of migrants. There I met migrants living in various communal houses situated in a defined perimeter of the district. This residential area began to be inhabited by migrants more recently than Plaza de Armas and migrants live there following the same pattern of sharing rooms in run down houses. In the area there is a Catholic institution ‘El Hogar de Cristo’ and associated to it, the Parish “Pedro Arrupe” which runs a special program to assist migrants. Over the last years the area of Estación Central has been increasingly

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attracting Peruvian migrants.38 Initially, I established contact with the migrants through the Catholic volunteer team of the Parish who knew the community and facilitated my access to them.39 Once I got to know the first group of migrants they introduced me to other migrants living in the vicinity.

As I discovered soon after, some of the migrants living in Estación Central I interacted with either knew or were related to the migrants living in the area surrounding Plaza de Armas, some of them had even lived in the Plaza de Armas area before.40 _{Most of the migrants I interviewed in Estación Central came from the same}

cities in Peru, similar to the group of migrants living in the vicinity of Plaza de Armas. However unlike with the migrants in the vicinity of Plaza de Armas, I mostly visited them over weekends when I conducted in-depth interviews.41

In several of these locations I met with migrants, held conversations and simply spent time with them. I visited restaurants serving Peruvian food and I spent time with migrants who were both street sellers and buyers of food. I also accompanied migrants when they called home from formal as well as informal call centres, and when they sent cash remittances home. In addition, I joined migrants when they attended their gatherings in ballrooms as well as events held at migrants’ collective houses located in the area.

Other sites of my ethnography were located in Peru in the cities of Lima, and in the mid-north, Chimbote, Trujillo as well as the Huaringas Lakes in the district of Piura in the far north of Peru. These places were visited at the end of my fieldwork, in July and August, 2004 when I met with some migrants who had returned to Peru and to their families. During my visits, I delivered packages and pictures on request of migrants. I shared news and impressions of their lives in Chile. I shared meals and conducted interviews with the returned migrants and their relatives. I also visited traditional healers or curanderos in the Huaringa’s Lakes, in northern Peru. Migrants visit such healers when they are seriously ill or when their well-being is too compromised. Many non-migrant Peruvians also visit these shamans for health reasons and cleansing. I took part in one such healing session.

Having described the multiple sites selected to do ethnography, it is necessary to briefly reflect on the implication of the chosen areas –and its inhabitants – for the study and its findings. The areas selected inform the specificities of the population selected and its differences with other migrants that were not incorporated in this study. Plaza de Armas and Estación Central (likewise other Peruvian neighbourhoods in the districts of

38

The closeness of that service together with the general depreciation of houses in the area, and its relative good location (in close distance to the subway and the Bus Terminus) may all be factors attracting migrants to live in the area.

39

The Parish Church Pedro Arrupe is a Catholic Church which offers assistance to migrants, particularly to those with an illegal status. Volunteers from the church regularly visit migrants' collective houses on Sundays. The long-term relationship established by these volunteers with this particular community of migrants has created a bridge of trust. This was absolutely necessary in order to obtain the migrants’ consent to take part in this study.

40 _{I often heard these migrants expressing their preference for the residential area of Estación Central}

which according to them is quieter than living near Plaza de Armas where the close proximity of discos makes people more prompt to partying and to the associated imbibing of alcohol.

41 _{The selection of this other area was based on the shared similarities with the group of Palza de Armas}

69 Independecia and Recoleta) have similar characteristics. In both areas migrants live in ethnically highly concentrated spaces, sharing rooms and being members of social networks consisting almost exclusively of Peruvian citizens. In choosing these sites I did not reach migrants who may have never contemplated living in these areas because their resources allowed them to live in better off neighbourhoods. Nor did I reach those who may have decided or financially managed to move out of the close community and are now dispersed in various neighbourhoods throughout the city. Those other migrants whom I did not reach are probably part of other social networks, may have other experiences of migration as well as may establish other relationships with Chile and the Chileans with whom they probably interact more closely.

The residential areas here selected however, are representative of a significant group of Peruvian migrants living in Santiago–city where the largest community of Peruvian nationals reside in Chile. Having arrived relatively recently into the country as migrant workers, they do not have enough resources to settle down independently. They may be found for example in La Florida, a predominantely middle class district. This factor links to other elements which characterize the group of migrants selected; the majority of the migrants living in the districts selected are blue collar workers, earning an income close to the minimal wage. Would I have selected more integrated and better off Peruvian migrants living in Chile, it would have probably led to different findings.