Pedagogies of immigration: Brazilian immigrant influencers in Ireland and their YouTube channels

Abstract

According to the latest report from the Ministry of External Relations, there are over 80.000 Brazilians living in Ireland, a country with just over 5 million inhabitants. The agricultural sector marks the beginning of Brazilian immigration to Ireland, through the recruitment of Brazilians for the meat processing industry. Started in the 1990s, this process takes place amidst slaughterhouses in the Anápolis region, in the state of Goiás. Since then, significant changes have occurred in the profile of Brazilian immigrants in Ireland. One of these changes is the increase in Brazilian immigration through study visas. Currently, the number of Brazilians with study visas is increasingly significant, with people taking advantage of study opportunities to carry out a migration project. The contemporary life of immigrants is permeated by the use of the internet, and social networks have become the main means of communication. We analyzed 12 YouTube channels of Brazilian immigrants in Ireland, which together have more than 40 cataloged videos, separated by topic. By bringing together potential immigrants, a significant portion of the content produced answers frequently asked questions about the immigration process. Thinking about the internet as a field also means thinking about it through its possibilities for occupation, as well as the associations circumscribed by it, but not limited to it. It is in this wake that this article is constructed: the ethnographic monitoring of audiovisual productions by Brazilian immigrants in Ireland reveals an important dimension of the production of subjectivities that are no longer restricted to the locality but go beyond the nation-state and physical space.