Migrantes de privilegio: representaciones de la desigualdad en un proyecto migratorio de Germanohablantes en Paraguay

Abstract

At the end of 2017, a couple from Austria began building up a settlement projectedeventually to house up to 20,000 inhabitants in an area of 16km² in rural Paraguay, whichthey called “El Paraíso Verde”. The call, disseminated on various websites and YouTubechannels, targeted a German-speaking citizen disenchanted with the migration policies takenby the European Union regarding refugees, and in search of a more 'natural' life.The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic was used to emphasize the need to migrate: Paraguayoffered fewer restrictions on movement and vaccination was not mandatory. Since then,migration to Paraguay has intensified.This study responds to how inequalities are represented in times of pandemic crisis in thecontext of a European migration project to Paraguay. To answer this question, I frame thistype of migration in what is called "lifestyle migration" (Benson and O'Reilly, 2009) that assumes a degree of privilege in migrant subjects and is built on colonial imaginaries. Usingtools of discourse analysis, I show how German-speaking settlers thematize inequalitiesconcerning the Paraguayan health system under a colonial prism, and inscribed within the'New Age' movement called "Anastasia" and contrast it with local journalistic mediacoverage that highlights that foreign migrants are protected by local political power, i.e. in abroader framework of structural corruption and denounce different forms of clientelism.