Dr. Mercedes Eguiguren is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the SSHRC-funded MiFOOD Project. Her research explores the intersections of mobility, socio-spatial inequalities, and the subjective experience of migration, with a focus on South-South migration in the Andean region and the transnational Ecuadorian diaspora in North America. Within the MiFOOD Project, she investigates the social integration of migrants in urban spaces under precarious conditions shared with the local population, particularly in Quito, Ecuador. She is currently coordinating an ethnographic study on migrant workers in Quito’s food sector with Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ), examining their integration into local commerce and informal work networks. Her work aims to understand how migrants’ food security, urban economic roles, social connections, and subjective ties to the city relate to broader struggles for belonging in Latin America.

Dr. Eguiguren has published on international and internal migration, the migration-development nexus, Ecuadorian migration history, and migration policy. Her book, Movilidades y poder en el sur de Ecuador, 1950–1990 (FLACSO Ecuador Press, 2019), received an Honorable Mention from LASA’s Premio Iberoamericano in 2021. With over 10 years of experience teaching Sociology and Migration Studies at Ecuadorian universities, she has also collaborated on international migration studies training programs in Latin America.