A Gendered Perspective on the Arrival and Settlement of Colombian Refugees in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Colombia has a long history of political violence which, in recent decades, has been exacerbated by other types of violence related to the illegal drugs trade and growing socio-economic inequalities. As a result, large sectors of the Colombian population have been displaced internally or abroad. Despite this, little is known about Colombian refugees, especially those coming to Europe. This article seeks to partly remedy this by analysing the experiences of Colombian refugees living in London from a gendered perspective, based on qualitative fieldwork carried out between 2003 and 2007. First, it shows that these migration flows are remarkably heterogeneous and include threatened political activists in search of refuge, and asylum-seekers and others escaping insecurity and more-generalised violence, thus differing from more-traditional Latin American refugee movements to Europe. Secondly, it focuses on how gender, contexts of exit and arrival, class, type of refugee migration and life course, combine to frame the migration experiences of refugees in industrialised countries.