The recent political and economic turmoil in Ecuador has spurred a significant flow of emigrants. Many of these emigrants are parents who leave their children behind, because of the local availability of extended family and inexpensive childcare versus the difficulty of adjusting to a new country with children. Western culture research has reported the deleterious effects of maternal separation in early childhood; this dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist studies the effects of emigration on older children in a cross-cultural context. The student will examine the effects of separation from emigrated parents on their left-behind children, how distress develops and how cultural understandings may be used to adapt socially and psychologically to distress from separation in the context of emigration in Guayaquil, Ecuador. With person-centered interviews, projective tests, and observations of the children and caregiver's behaviors to assess the child's psychological state while their parents are preparing to emigrate, during the actual departure, and while their parents are abroad, the student will determine the psychological state of the child and the methods that the child uses to adjust to parental emigration.
Broader Impacts: This research has the practical application to inform psychologists, policy-makers, and caregivers how to best help these children cope with the psychological effects of parental emigration. In exploring how and why some children are able to adjust to parental emigration and others are not, those seeking to assist these children can better understand the efficacy of certain psychological interventions. This model for understanding distress in a particular context can be extrapolated to other situations in which children face similar distress. In addition, this research will contribute to the educational development of a doctoral candidate in psychological anthropology interested in applied research.
