Families on the Move: Latin American Perspectives, edited by Dr Patricia Nabuco Martuscelli (University of Sheffield) and Dr Nuni Jorgensen (University of Oxford), addresses a significant gap in the migration literature, which has historically centered on North American and European contexts.
The Special Issue advances the field along three key dimensions:
- Rethinking binary notions of separation and reunification by highlighting fluid forms of family life that have movement and transit at their core;
- Examining how progressive policies alone cannot guarantee the right to family life, especially in the face of economic precarity and implementation gaps;
- Interrogating how colonial, racial, and gendered legacies shape perceptions of family and care.
By centring on Latin America, this Special Issue addresses a critical gap in migration literature and challenges essentialised notions of ‘the South’, demonstrating that migrant families’ experiences are diverse, intersectional, and profoundly shaped by the specific socio-historical conditions of each local context.
A cornerstone of this Special Issue is Dr Martuscelli’s open-access article, ‘Is there a right to family reunification for refugees in Latin America?’
Drawing on a thematic analysis of regional human rights documents, Inter-American Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, and national asylum legislations, Dr Martuscelli argues that family reunification has been consolidated as a fundamental human right within the region as most countries have directly guaranteed a right to family reunification in their asylum legislation and indirectly by recognising the principle of family unity. Additionally, Latin American countries adopt an extended definition of family that extends beyond the nuclear family, based primarily on economic dependency relations.
