Student mobilities in Tacna, Perú: its border practices and meanings

Valdebenito F.; Mamani M.; Merma F.; Pérez C.; Sopo C. · Si Somos Americanos (2024) · DOI: 10.61303/07190948.v24i.1133

Resumen

We discuss the results of a quantitative and qualitative investigation on daily mobilities of students between and through the districts of the border city of Tacna, Peru. We restrict our investigation to an age group ranging from 10 to 17 years old. The mobilities of those students are emphatically oriented towards school institutions located in the urban historic center of Tacna, with the students coming from other peripheral urban and rural districts. We built data by combining techniques such as surveys and in-depth interviews and the results suggest that these movements are made up of complex meanings, beyond being functional as such. We were able to verify that these meanings are linked to border social and spatial contexts, that are much more extra-curricular than formal school, in the sense that education is understood as an acquisition of practices and knowledge in a biographical way between and across the border. These practices and acquired knowledge appear associated with family processes of internal migration for commercial reasons, from rural areas to urban contexts in border areas. We approach these results from a theoretical perspective that explores the relationship between education and mobility, understanding both as a set of complex practices and meanings.

Instituciones: Universidad Privada de Tacna