Fronteiras e conexões online e offline: sociabilidade de migrantes brasileiras na Guiana Francesa

Abstract

Even with restrictions on the movement of people, social isolation, and lockdown, socialization among Brazilian women living in French Guiana is maintained by technological advancement and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This research aims to analyze the sociabilities of Brazilian female migrants in French Guiana, based on their lived experiences and background, through virtual and socio-spatial networks. More specifically, it aims to study the migratory scenario of Brazilian women to French Guiana: to investigate the interfaces between sociability and migration in contemporary times and describe their life stories, from leaving Brazil to their arrival and settlement in French Guiana, in order to map the means of sociability developed by them in that territory. The guiding question is: can the online and offline social interactions of Brazilian female migrants imply reconfigurations of their sociability in French Guiana? From netnography, semi-structured interviews, and research into "communities online" in the social network Facebook, it was possible to discuss and understand a social phenomenon that goes far beyond geographical or territorial spaces, but that also happens through the Internet, in a context of a globalized world, increasingly crossed by the uses of ICTs, which directly affect the female migrants ways of being and existing in society.