When the 2008 economic crisis hit Europe, a significant number of Ecuadorians living in Spain decided to pack their bags and return to their home country. There, they faced further crises—economic, political, and health-related. In their search for a better life, drawn by the promises of economic development and pressured by their families’ expectations, these migrants found themselves having to lower and reassess their aspirations. Some of them reconsidered the value of a 'simple life'—or at least a 'bearable' one—a life they could realistically afford, all within a context where hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan men and women were arriving in Ecuador, further animating public and political debates on migratory flows and their different implications.
Interwoven mobile trajectories that saw migrants moving from Ecuador and Cuba to Spain, and return to their countries of origin, have been closely studied by Swiss anthropologist Valerio Simoni and his team as part of the “BETLIV” project, conducted at the Geneva Graduate Institute with support from an ERC Starting Grant. Now, Simoni intends to return to the field to further verify and test his findings, experiment with innovative participatory research methods, and generate new insights that can be of interest to organisations working with migrants, including NGOs and UN agencies.
Simoni’s project will take place at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, thanks to a €150,000 “Proof of Concept” grant from the European Research Council, which is aimed at “turning science into practice”, i.e. exploring the practical application of research findings. This is the first ERC PoC grant to be undertaken at Ca’ Foscari.
Valerio Simoni states, "The aim is to bring together individuals with diverse migration paths to enquire about and compare their hopes and future visions. The project collaborates with two prominent local NGOs to evaluate challenges related to migration, employing participatory strategies and multimodal methods—from photo-elicitation to audiovisual media—to enhance the engagement of migrant communities and to broaden and diversify communication and outreach for all the stakeholders in the research.”
“A few years ago, we started exploring what notions of a ‘better life’ drive migrants to cross borders and oceans,” states the anthropologist from Ca’ Foscari. “We have since refined the exploratory notion of a ‘simple’ or ‘bearable’ life by engaging with migrants who returned to their Latin American homelands, learning about their aspirations for a life that no longer solely seeks upward mobility or ‘success’. Instead, the vicissitudes of their homecomings have led some to embrace ideals that value simplicity and frugality, resisting the pressures felt from family and communities in their place of origin."

Alongside intertwined migration trajectories, we thus see relational, ethical, and economic dynamics come strongly into play. A deeper understanding of these links can form the basis for new support initiatives and social policies. “Our aim with the new BEARLIV project is to foster social innovation by developing transferable strategies in collaboration with the people involved,” concludes Simoni. Over the coming months, he will conduct a month of fieldwork, with support from his colleague Jérémie Voirol, an expert on Ecuador and Ecuadorian migration, along with students from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO Ecuador) and local organisations Corredores Migratorios and Corporación Alianza Migrante.