Gender structured representations of the migrant Venezuelan women in Colombian and Venezuelan Newspapers during 2015-2020.

Abstract

This theses explores news media representations of Venezuelan migrant women by Colombian and Venezuelan newspapers from years 2015 to 2020. Through Critical Discourse Analysis of news articles from El Nacional (Ven), El Universal (Ven), El Tiempo (Col) and, Cuestión Publica (Col) newspapers, my work reveals that the media presents Venezuelan women in limited ways, by maintaining the perception of these women associated to gender structures through sexualizing or victimizing their bodies. Migration of Venezuelan women to other countries is mostly influenced by external factors such as political and economic crisis, violence, insecurity, and lack of opportunities. Venezuelan women are migrating and facing gendered violent structures that impact their experiences during the migration process. Aspects of biopolitics defined as the control of the government, political, and social structures over the in the population, life and living beings (Foucault, 1976), geopolitics referred as the management of the geographic and political structures by specific parties, and unequal gender power relations, among other factors, shape the migration process of Venezuelan women. Such contextual aspects - which are ignored and blurred by news media representations - inform my own critical discourse analysis. Overall, I found that the discourses reproduced and circulated by the newspapers' articles are mainly focused on migrant women's sexuality, creating a limited imaginary that shapes the visualization of Venezuelan women in Colombia to the readers. These discourses are used to frame and justify anti-migratory laws, to further regulate national borders and their mobility, and to control the bodies of Venezuelan women that migrate to Colombia.