About the presentation
What does it mean for Venezuelans to be a migrant and/or refugee in Brazil? What meanings do they attribute to their migratory processes? What dialogues and interactions do they establish when faced with the multiple identities existing in Roraima, a Brazilian state on the border with Venezuela? In 2016, the number of Venezuelans entering the country intensified at the Brazilian border with Venezuela, in the state of Roraima. This movement led the country to create Operação Acolhida (‘Welcome Operation’), a governmental and interagency humanitarian response that includes the creation of institutional shelters to accommodate these people, as well as local integration practices and specific public policies. Following the trails left by Venezuelan migration, we will investigate the characteristics and specificities of the migratory processes of Venezuelans based on their own autobiographical narratives combined with the researcher's ethnography provided by fieldwork, identifying their educational, social, and humanitarian needs and analyzing the perceptions, meanings, and references about what it means for Venezuelans to be a migrant and refugee in Brazil.
About Josué
Josué Santos is an interdisciplinary researcher with a Master of Arts degree in Public Security, Human Rights, and Citizenship from the State University of Roraima (Brazil) and is currently a PhD candidate in Education at the University of São Paulo (Class of 2026). He worked as a Field Assistant at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, between 2018-2021, in addition to carrying out various projects in NGOs in Turkey, Greece and Brazil. Committed to Amazonian causes, he launched, together with UERR, the directory "Indigenous Peoples of Roraima" in 2022, a directory that provides information on the main indigenous ethnic groups present in the state of Roraima. Regarding refugees, he had projects implemented by the UN during the aforementioned period and received the title of “Amigo da Acolhida (‘Friend of Welcome’) from the Federal Government of Brazil for humanitarian services provided to the country in the context of Operação Acolhida.
