So who is building sustainable development? Transforming exploitative labour along southern corridors of migration

There has been a 40% increase in the number of international migrants in less than two decades with 245 million international migrants on the move worldwide. The majority have their trajectory restricted within countries in the Global South. Increased border limitations into the Global North mean that the promise of humanitarian protection and assistance is also falling disproportionately on the stronger of the southern hemispheric countries that as yet have not the structures in place to respond to new arrivals. Simultaneously, public and private growth initiatives in the latter countries hinge on the availability of flexible labour for large, infrastructure projects

The Brazilian Amazon region is a key example of an emergent migrant destination. Brazil's impressive economic performance in the first decade of the 21st century has been accompanied by a positive rhetoric towards immigrants and the rapid expansion of the local labour market. Subsequent movement across the vast border that straddles seven countries and eight Brazilian states has been constituted not just by more conventional Bolivian, Colombian, Paraguayan and Peruvian migrants, but large numbers of recent Venezuelan arrivals, Haitian, Senegalese and Congolese migrants who have arrived in Brazil following rejection from northern borders. They all try to make a living that is so far characterised by precarious status and resources so far. Hence new zones of humanitarian crisis are emerging throughout the rural and urban landscapes, and becoming so far poorly understood corridors of weakly regulated labour recruitment. Through these corridors, informal and formal relations and contracts are channelled and combined, and lead to a critical deficit in so-called decent work in the very sectors on which the 'building' of sustainable economies depends. The key to sustainable development as defined by the ILO is thus not fitting at all.
This research explores increasingly dominant forms of employment regimes in the Global South where conventional distinctions between formal and informal work are over determined by local power relations. These relations are expressed in sectoral peculiarities for rapidly expanding infrastructure projects, and in the specificity of each individual's biographical trajectory. In key sectors of construction, energy and agroindustry, these new regimes depend upon, while sustaining, demand for flexible labour. Conventionally sourced from domestic migrant labour it is increasingly being recruited from the Amazonian frontier between Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and the receiving country, Brazil. An interdisciplinary research team will use a participatory and transformative research agenda that aims to investigate: (i) how a deficit in regulation and enforcement between formal and informal actors is turning humanitarian corridors into zones of social crisis for migrants seeking employment; (ii) to what extent the experience of exploitative work and labour analogous to slavery (work endured under threat of penalty, is forced, trafficked or involuntarily indebted) is a product of a series of informal and formal contracts along the migrant journey from home to workplace, (ii) how migrant workers, through collective and active knowledge building, can transform inequitable power relations across a range of spatial and hierarchical nodes.

The project seeks to understand the critical deficit in decent work from the perspective of those vulnerable workers most affected by current power inequalities across formal and informal recruitment and employment regimes to inform participatory intervention at a key juncture in Brazil's economic and social development. These migrants will be integral to the global workforce of 2030, particularly in emerging economies, yet in 2018 they remain peripheral to how this is discussed. This proposal take a significant step towards engaging peripheral migrant workers in transforming this reality.

The project will benefit academic knowledge in the field of migration, employment and sustainable development; impact on regional and global understanding and hence policy development to address serious deficits in decent work in line with 2030 priorities; and social and economic development in Brazil in relation to the most vulnerable workers and industrial sectors integral to sustainable development. It will do so by the forms and quality of data and knowledge generation and the means by which these are shared amongst a range of stakeholders who will benefit in the following ways.
Firstly, on an individual level, for at least 180 migrants, experiences of injustice along transit and work that are psychologically challenging and often rationalised, normalised and reluctantly accepted will be integral to informing collective responses, hence validating personal narratives in overcoming dislocation and marginalisation. The project in turn will revisit migrant workers in temporary, inadequate and makeshift accommodation on the Amazonian border in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso, Acre and Amazonas and Roraima and these will benefit from knowledge sharing of the project outputs through booklets, film, a public presentation in each locale and the communication of rights in relation to status, formal contracting and employment in line with decent work agendas.
In three industrial sectors, and with the support of migrant support agencies and trade union partners, this will be directly shared with workers through the multilingual outputs, and again through the use of ubiquitous mobile phone technology.
Moving to the next level of engagement, government agencies with statutory responsibility for ensuring social rights of migrants at a municipal, state and national level will benefit from the knowledge on decent work deficit from a previously underrepresented cohort of the contemporary labour market. Through the specific workshop engagements and shared platforms, field trips and cultural, creative engagements to facilitate less formal encounters, the Ministry of Labour for each of the regions will engage with migrant worker representatives thus realising social dialogue that is a key deficit at present. On the basis of the data generated and knowledge co-produced by project team, the key priorities set by migrant workers will be addressed directly to the relevant agencies to inform changes to policy, the coverage of current employment regulation and transnational policy development on decent work, via ILO.
The knowledge sharing through direct engagement via creative workshops and public presentations, and through maximising communication of this through the networks of carefully chosen partners and new technologies will build a greater awareness among migrant workers of social rights and where to get support to ensure their rights are upheld. In addition representatives from the initial workshops will be elected to represent the outcomes to the key stakeholders, increasing these individuals' capacity for future engagement.
For four migrant representatives and two students, specific training on facilitation and transformative methods will be provided, increasing capacity for their involvement throughout project and thereafter.
Academia
The project uses state of the art participatory techniques and new technologies to contribute knowledge production from a poorly understood phenomenon in relation to increasingly dominant migration flows, employment regimes and inequality. Through international academic engagements via a major conference, presentation of the work in at least two further conferences alongside academic publication and popular dissemination through the website, podcast, film and social media this study will impact on theoretical and empirical advances in the academic fields that it cuts across.