Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9286-4441

Date of Award

8-31-2026

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Global Governance and Human Security

First Advisor

Jeffrey D. Pugh

Abstract

This dissertation examines how Latin American migrants engage in nonviolent resistance across transnational spaces in Ecuador, challenging dominant narratives that portray migrants primarily as passive actors or humanitarian subjects. Focusing mainly on Venezuelan, Colombian, and returned Ecuadorian migrants, the study places migrants’ political agency at the center of analysis. It asks how migrants resist, for what purposes, and under which conditions they mobilize nonviolent and everyday resistance practices to claim rights, dignity, and human security in a host country marked by both legal innovation and growing exclusion.

Drawing on civil resistance theory, everyday resistance approaches, and migration scholarship, the research advances an integrative analytical framework that captures both visible, organized actions and less visible, everyday practices embedded in migrants’ daily lives. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative, interpretivist, and participatory action research approach. Empirical data were collected through extensive fieldwork in multiple Ecuadorian provinces between 2023 and 2025, including interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and documentary analysis.

The findings show that migrants deploy a wide repertoire of nonviolent tactics targeting multiple audiences simultaneously across national and transnational arenas. These practices pursue political, economic, and social objectives, and are shaped by intersecting factors such as legal status, class, race, gender, transnational networks, and host country political contexts. The findings challenge dichotomies between visibility and invisibility, politics and survival, and organized action and everyday practices. By foregrounding migrants lived experiences, this research aims to contribute to debates on civil resistance, transnationalism, and human security, while offering insights for more inclusive and non-securitized approaches to migration governance.

Comments

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