Does One Size Fit All? A Field-Based Learning Experience on Applying Respondent Driven Sampling to a South-South Migration-Receiving Country

Victoria Prieto Rosas , Universidad de la Republica
Clara Márquez, Universidad de la Republica
Julieta Bengochea, Universidad de la República

The Ethno-survey on Recent Immigration (ERI) was conducted in Montevideo in the seven months following July 2018. We interviewed 804 immigrants from Cuba, Dominican Republic, Peru and Venezuela. The questionnaire was an adaptation of the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project questionnaires for South-South migration –originally designed to address return and outmigration-, and it was first attempt to apply some form of Respondent Driven Sampling for this project. This paper describes this fieldwork experience paying attention to (i) sampling techniques used to capture the target population in the absence of a sample frame; (ii) the challenges faced along with the implementation of these techniques in regard to timeliness, costs and the diversity of migrants from four very different communities of origin; and (iii) adaptations made to outreach labor migrants (documented and undocumented), asylum seekers and refugees. Conclusions of the paper include a set of practical recommendations for future research on documented and undocumented immigrants from diverse communities.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy