Podcast
The Migration Oxford podcast is created by Migration Oxford. Its aim is to bring together researchers and other observers to address the major migration issues of our time, both in UK and internationally, inform and influence public debate and policy considerations, and to connect with people who want to engage more deeply with issues of human movement. For more information see the Migration Oxford webpage.
For several decades, researchers based at the University of Oxford have been addressing one of the most compelling human stories; why and how people move. Combining the expertise of the Centre on Migration Policy and Society, the Refugee Studies Centre, Border Criminologies in the Department of Law, the Transport Studies Unit in the School of Geography and the Environment, and scholars working on migration and mobility from across divisions and departments, the University has one the largest concentrations of migration researchers in the world. We all come together at Migration Oxford.
In this episode, we explore how patterns of mobility to and from Mexico have changed over time, and how these shifts reflect the growing complexity of migration in the modern world. Mexico is a place of transit. It is a place where settlement, emigration, immigration, and internal displacement occur simultaneously and at an unprecedented scale within Latin America.
However, as both a border between the global North and South and a recipient of increasingly restrictive U.S. migration policies, Mexico also reflects the growing complexity of migration in the modern world and inequality across borders.
In this episode, recorded earlier last year, we spoke with Maria Elena Hernández, Regional Protection Coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council; Mara Tissera Luna, Research Fellow at Georgetown University; and Abril Ríos-Rivera, DPhil candidate in Migration Studies, about the politics of migration across the continent and within Mexico. Together, they discuss how patterns of mobility to and from Mexico have changed over time, and how these shifts reflect the growing complexity of migration in the modern world.
The episode is co-hosted by Jacqueline Broadhead, Director of the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, and Rob McNeil, Deputy Director of The Migration Observatory. You can find out more about the speakers, all of who bring lived experience, below:
Maria Elena Hernández is Regional Protection Coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and holds a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. Originally a Mexican citizen, she is a humanitarian worker, leading humanitarian protection responses in the Middle East and Asia. Since 2019, she has worked for the DRC to protect the human rights of refugees, migrants, and displaced persons in Latin America.
Abril Ríos-Rivera is a DPhil candidate in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford and an international consultant. Her doctoral research examines how migration experiences transform and expand the agency of women and gender-diverse migrants, investigating how oppressive border regimes and personal life journeys influence migrants’ agency. Abril is also a consultant on forced displacement and refugee well-being in Kenya.
Mara Tissera Luna is an independent researcher focusing on migration and protection in the Americas and currently serves as a Fellow at Georgetown University. She is an international consultant focused on understanding the root causes of forced displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean and improving protection responses for displaced populations (such as children, LGBTQI+ individuals, and women survivors of gender-based violence).