Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the experiences, strategies and reasons of the ngäbe indigenous families of Panama that actively choose to permanently stay in a community where historically the vast majority of families have members that annually move temporarily to work in Costa Rica.

Paper Abstract:

Every year thousands of ngäbe indigenous families from Panama move from their territory, the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, to agricultural areas of Costa Rica to work in the coffee harvest. In communities such as Ratón, the articulation between mobility and immobility is one of the main life strategies of most domestic units and temporarily moving to the neighboring country to earn money is part of the local sociocultural and economic structures and something that is repeated and expected. Nonetheless, confronted with this way of living in (im)mobility, there are progressively more people who seek to remain continually in the community and value immobility as a way of life. Facing the “sacrifice” of constantly moving, being able to stay is now considered a success and even a source of social prestige.

Due to the sedentary logic that permeates our conceptions and is still present in the academic world, staying put is considered as the default situation. However, staying can also be an active, conscious and in many cases even costly decision. In the same way as living in (im)mobility demands the creativity and resourcefulness of the domestic units, the experiences observed in Ratón clearly show that living in the community permanently also requires strategies and inventive capacity. The aim of my communication is to present the different experiences and strategies of immobility of the ngäbe families that stay in their community, as well as analyze the impact of social welfare, education, transport infrastructures and local agricultural production in their decision to stay.