Immigration and host networks: the case of Haitians in Brazil

Abstract This paper aims to analyze the role of host networks in the migration process of Haitians to Brazil, trying to understand the extent to which these networks played a central role in the management and communication of the issues engendered by this immigration in the country and, at the same time, if it was able of facilitating their mobility in Brazil, providing feedback to the migratory flow that began in 2010. Based on data collected from the Border, in Manaus and in some Brazilian cities, where 279 questionnaires were filled out, gathering information about the Haitian migrants present in Brazil, as well as their absent families, whether in Haiti or in another country, it was possible to build the hypothesis that without these host networks the arrival and mobility of these immigrants in Brazil would have been much more difficult than it really was, because of the lack of public policies for hosting and sociocultural insertion.