Fátima Morales López
International Research Training Group 'Temporalities of Future in Latin America'
PhD Candidate
Political Sciences
Project: "Forced Migration from El Salvador: The Experience of Prolonged Suffering"
Education
| Since 08/2022 | Researcher PhD in political y social science, oriented toward sociology at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), México |
| Since 11/2019 | Master’s in social psychology of Groups and Institutions at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Unidad Xochimilco (UAM-X), México |
| 03/2010 - 10/2015 | Bachelor’s in psychology at Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA), El Salvador |
Work experience
| Since 05/2025 |
Researcher, International Research Training Group ‘Temporalities of Future’, Berlin |
| 08/2022 - 07/2023 | Research support for the project: Recruitment and Internal Structuring in Youth Gangs, A Comparative Study of Southern Africa and Mexico, at UNAM, Support Program for Research and Technological Innovation Projects |
| 12/2021 - 12/2022 | Researcher at Project: “Forced Migration of Trans Women: Mental Health and Protection Needs“, in El Salvador. Scholarship at Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO). |
| 12/2020 - 06/2022 | Technician at the Department of Information and Research on Human Mobility, Directorate of Analysis and Partnerships on Human Mobility, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador |
| 03/2020 - 06/2022 | University Professor at Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA), El Salvador. (Seminar on Migration, Seminar on Education and gender). |
Project: "Forced Migration from El Salvador: The Experience of Prolonged Suffering"
This doctoral research aims to explain the subjective production of forced salvadoran migration, grounded in the prolonged suffering that has been sociohistorically produced. El Salvador faces a situation of economic, political and social instability, shaped by a sociohistorical context with strong geopolitical influences. This context produces and reproduces forced migration, ultimately resulting in the expulsion of its own population, whether through regular or irregular means.
Those who migrate forcibly live with continuous violence on a daily basis; they migrate to survive and face prolonged, and even historical suffering that begins in El Salvador but extends through the country’s historical experience and accompanies the lives of those who are forced to leave. There is an overwhelming burden of suffering that culminates in mass migration, as people find no viable options to continue living in the country. In this regard, I propose the theoretical category of prolonged suffering, which emerges from a bibliographic review of El Salvador’s sociohistorical context as well as from my own lived experience as a salvadoran. Accordingly, the research methodology includes an autoethnographic synthesis and fieldwork conducted in Mexico City, which gathers the migratory experiences of salvadorans who were forced to flee the country.
Those who flee see their imagined future abruptly cut off. In cases of forced migration, there is an indefinite uncertainty marked by disruptive temporalities within a globalized world. The migratory experience -where no other way of living is possible- requires, beyond carrying a constant mourning process for what is left behind, the urgent need to create multiple possible scenarios in which survival becomes the only viable solution.
Chapters (selection)
Brioso Díaz, L. J., Menjívar Soriano, L. M., & Morales López, F. A. (2023). Migración forzada de mujeres trans: salud mental y necesidades de protección. En G. A. Navarro Alvarado et al. (Eds.), "Migrar en el siglo XXI: Conflictos, políticas y derechos" (1ª ed.). CLACSO. https://biblioteca-repositorio.clacso.edu.ar/handle/CLACSO/248342
ISBN: 978-987-813-575-5
Articles (selection)
Brioso Díaz, L. J., Menjívar Soriano, L. M., & Morales López, F. A. (2023). Políticas y Líneas de la Acción. Migración forzada de mujeres trans: salud mental y necesidades de protección. Colección convocatorias de investigación. CLACSO.
Morales, F. (2018). Desplazamiento forzado interno en El Salvador: análisis discursivo de la figura del desplazado, Contextos, núm. 20-19, pp. 1-5.
