BackgroundMigrant women engaged in precarious employment, such as sex work, frequently face pronounced social isolation alongside other barriers to health and human rights. Although peer support has been identified as a critical HIV and violence prevention intervention for sex workers, little is known about access to peer support or its role in shaping health and social outcomes for migrant sex workers. This article analyses the role of peer support in shaping vulnerability and resilience related to HIV/STI prevention and violence among international migrant sex workers at the Mexico-Guatemala border.MethodsThis qualitative study is based on 31 semi-structured interviews conducted with international migrant sex workers in the Mexico-Guatemala border communities of Tapachula, Mexico and Tecún Umán and Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.ResultsPeer support was found to be critical for reducing social isolation; improving access to HIV/STI knowledge, prevention and resources; and mitigating workplace violence, particularly at the initial stages of migration and sex work. Peer support was especially critical for countering social isolation, and peers represented a valuable source of HIV/STI prevention knowledge and resources (e.g., condoms), as well as essential safety supports in the workplace. However, challenges to accessing peer support were noted, including difficulties establishing long-lasting relationships and other forms of social participation due to frequent mobility, as well as tensions among peers within some work environments. Variations in access to peer support related to country of work, work environment, sex work and migration stage, and sex work experience were also identified.ConclusionsResults indicate that peer-led and community empowerment interventions represent a promising strategy for promoting the health, safety and human rights of migrant sex workers. Tailored community empowerment interventions addressing the unique migration-related contexts and challenges faced by migrant sex workers should be a focus of future community-based research, alongside promotion of broader structural changes.

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Language in practice-based research is often considered as an insufficient medium to explore and share the complexity of human experience. As a result, the potential of writing as a practice-based method, especially when related to non-fiction genres, has not been widely explored. In this article, I take a different stance. Based on the analysis of the process of writing media content in collaboration with 59 internal migrant women and a local communication NGO and community media outlet in Ecuador, I argue that language is not only cognitive, but also mediates affect and is itself affective. Paying closer attention to this intricate relationship between affect and language can turn writing into an embodied and affective practice-based method. When done collectively, this method can be leveraged by community-engaged projects to open an avenue for communities’ self-representation and meaningful participation in all the stages of the research process. As such, collaborative media writing as a practice-based method can strengthen the efforts and increase the impact of community-engaged initiatives aiming to amplify the voices of underrepresented communities and diverse groups.

Latin American communication research has a long history of considering communication as a participatory and horizontal process. However, this research is not necessarily widely known in the West. This paper analyzes the work of some of the main foundational and contemporary communication scholars from Latin America, and the contributions and limitations of this body of work in relation to global communication. This paper draws mainly from the work of foundational and contemporary scholars from Latin America. To a lesser extent, it draws from the work of scholars from other countries from the West and the Global South that can inform the understanding of communication research in Latin America. An exploration of the main work and thought of some of the foundational Latin American communication scholars indicates that most of this literature has focused on empirical contributions, assessing, questioning, re-contextualizing and adapting the theories from the West to the local settings, and that less emphasis has been placed on generating unique theoretical concepts and frameworks emerging from the region. However, a review of the work of some contemporary scholars from Latin America – especially the ones focusing on participation, decoloniality and the conceptualization of the margins – suggests that there could be a shift in the focus of Latin American communication research, and the contributions that it could have to the theory and practice of global communication. The analysis of the literature indicates that the work of some of the contemporary Latin American scholars focusing on decoloniality and the conceptualization of the margins could contribute to build theoretical work emerging from the region and, in this way, help increase, re-value, and distribute the literature making unique theoretical contributions to the study of communication from Latin America. This work could have important theoretical and empirical contributions to communication research in Latin America and beyond. Future research in the region should take these considerations into account, while also studying the possibilities and limitations of emerging information technologies in different contexts.