Joint Master Program on Sustainable Territorial Development (STeDe 2018/2020)

BORDERLANDS FOR CENTRAL AMERICANS:

REFLECTIONS ON THE CARAVANAS MIGRANTES

Natalia Beatriz Quiñónez Portillo

For most North American States, why does it appear that the whole world that takes place

from the south of the Río Bravo towards Latin America, represents always a ‘problem’?

And what place at this discussion do ‘borders’ have? For answering these questions, on

‘Borderlands’, Agier (2015) provides some insightful elements that depart from a

necessary contextualization on the role that borders play nowadays for defining what is

considered a ‘problem’, in order to understand the kind of solutions drawn from such

definitions. During the nineties, after globalization trends started to influence most of the

American continent’s reconfiguration of institutions towards denationalization, in order

to allow the transnationalization of economies, societies might have experienced the

feeling that borders had finally disappeared. Reality is that the eradication of borders only

happened for financial and commercial markets, while for human mobility, walls

proliferated and were reinforced. In a context of a weakened sovereignty for States,

global capital became the only supranational minority with the privilege of moving freely,

in favor of its accumulation interests.

What has happened to borders in a globalized world? They have transformed into more

unstable temporalities and spaces that embody multiple identities reconfigured in

respect to different types of ‘boundaries’ (being categorized as an alterity), who are also

experiencing several situations of ‘passage’ (being is a state of transition). They are

turning into borderlands, where the category of ‘foreigners’ (the borderland inhabitants)

is being also redefined from a narrative that uplifts a sense of ‘indigeneity’ among those

that are not foreigners. Today, this narrative is used to justify the violence of

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stigmatization and dehumanization of foreigners, while also explains why ‘border’ policy

has been transitioning more and more towards the extension of walls. Because, after

being weakened by the denationalization of its economic power, to control migratory

flows is the last thing that is left for States to maintain their legitimacy.

The US and Mexican States, and now also Central American (mainly the ones from the

Northern Triangle), have exemplified for a long time how the machinery and industry of

borderlands work: during the last 30 years, a great part of their institutional resources is

being directed to the management of migration mobility and regulation of borders

through many mechanisms: surveillance, detention, persecution, criminalization,

discrimination, invalidation of a right to advocate for better living conditions and

deportation / expulsion of foreigners classified as ‘illegal immigrants’. The discourse and

juridical structure that supports the condition of being ‘illegal’ relies in the notion of

borders being what differentiates the ones ‘inside’ (the national indigenous people with

rights) from the ones coming from ‘outside’ (the intruders). Trump’s campaign, for

example, made use of this kind of discourse, provoking an unstoppable wave of

widespread ‘legitimacy’ for direct and indirect violence against everyone in the US who

could be considered as intruders, whether they were undocumented or not. As a

byproduct of this ‘backlash’, walls constitute one of the most important weapons of war

against ‘foreigners’.

But what kind of war can entail from the construction of a wall? The wall being built

throughout the US-Mexican border, in this case, has effectively reinforced different

psychological, symbolic, social and political messages of violence against Latin American

immigrants, mainly Mexican and Central American. In the end, the wall transmits a

message of the US’ unwillingness and disregard towards listening or engaging in

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conversation with Latin America, welcoming them into the country under suspicion of

being ‘aliens’ or potential criminals and respecting their civil and human rights. Among

US citizens, and even Latin Americans most affected by walls, a new subjectivity of the

‘foreigner’ as a clandestine or an enemy emerges: that is why, in this case, Trump has

managed to effectively provoke a desire among US citizens of extending the wall because

‘Latinxs are all inherently criminal, undesirable beings’1. Walls have also been able to cut

off all relational aspects of borderlands, which is the encounter with ‘the other’. In this

process, nevertheless, walls also create new spaces that extend the time-space interval

of borderlands, therefore impeding ‘foreigners’ from reaching their destination –or at

least to get their basic human rights guaranteed. In these sorts of ‘in-between’ states,

there are different types of dwellers2 who emerge and, in consequence, more diverse

concretizations of borderlands. Wanderers would be one of the categories of major

interest for analyzing the borderland situation of Latinx immigrants trying to cross the US-

Mexican border every day. More as a transitioning moment than a characterization,

wanderers go in an indefinite state of risky and (self)-enforced mobilization, be it

1
At this point, it would also be important to recall a paradox described by Agier as the porosity of borders.
Even if the wall symbolizes a policy of hatred against Latinxs, at the same time, the US is benefiting from
them, moreover when they are caged by an ‘illegality’ status. The degradation of Latinxs’ human rights in
North America has turned them into a very important stock of cheap labor.
2
According to Agier, there are three types of ‘border dwellers’ that inhabit and give life to the in-betweens:
wanderers, metèques and pariahs. Metèques would describe the situation of foreigners living in places
where the State does not guarantee any rights as citizens nor humans, but they still decide to settle in
conditions of irregularity and precariousness, due to a sense of ‘stability’ found in better paid jobs, in
comparison to job opportunities available in their countries of origin. Pariahs, on the contrary, seem to be
completely ignored by States where they live from the moment they are ‘radically’ separated from the rest
of the society and become ‘superfluous’. This experience can be found in encampments, among refugees
‘living out’ of humanitarian aid and learning to survive/cohabitate with other refugees.

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clandestinely or in homelessness. Anything separating them from next destinations, like

deserts or rivers, will be their borderlands. This scenario of foreignness defines

immigrants as anything but citizens; it distances them from their original identities to

become people living in uncertainty, in a place of alterity.

By reflecting on this, Agier discusses the idea of cosmopolitism: Ordinary cosmopolitism,

as he criticizes so, only creates an experience of ‘globalness’ that derives from sharing a

piece of the world with others momentarily, superficially. A highly contrasting

cosmopolitan subject would rather be the one who de-identifies themselves from their

places of origin and the places where they still haven’t really settled in. “They necessarily

carry the world on their head, even if this is not sought or projected, or even if they did

not construct a personal theory of it in advance”, Agier states. This other cosmopolitism

is lived daily by migrants, foreigners and refugees; nevertheless, because of globalization

causing borderlands and in-betweens to expand, it is becoming a more generalized

experience day by day between humans.

Now, when analyzing the phenomenon of the Caravanas Migrantes (Caravans of

Migrants)3, how can this definition of borderlands describe the temporalities and spaces

being transformed and re-created by massive movements of Central American

immigrants towards the US, with the intention of crossing the border, only in a more

3
From 16 October 2018, a series of caravans of thousands of Central American migrants have departed
from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, with the purpose of arriving to the US in the search of better
living conditions. Either they aim to ask for asylum, job opportunities or re-settle with their families outside
their countries of origin, most of them cite different causes that put their lives at threat as their main
motivation to flee Central America. When the first caravan departing from Honduras gained worldwide
media coverage, spontaneous initiatives of caravans departing from the Northern Triangle started to
multiply. From that moment, different political and social actors have reacted, shedding back the light to
the debate on the structural solutions that the immigration crisis needs.

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‘organized’ manner? And what reactions or relationships are emerging at these allegedly

reshaped borderlands? The Caravans of Migrants have contributed to the visibility of a

problem that has existed for decades before a more-aggressive-than-ever setting: a US

administration that has accumulated power during the last three years thanks to a higher

legitimization of a narrative of hatred and dehumanization against Latinxs. In their way

towards US territory, many bursts of short-lasting borderlands have emerged out of

spontaneous solidarity coming from local Guatemalan or Mexican citizens. In other cases,

organizations and local governments have also helped to create more decent conditions

for these borderlands. Nonetheless, migrants have also faced collective and

governmental reactions of violence and neglect: in Tijuana and US states close to the

border with Mexico, groups of citizens have organized demonstrations to manifest their

rejection towards immigrants, while other Mexican authorities have also made it

considerably harder for caravaneers to continue by fooling or denying support to them.

Their state of wanderers is, in these circumstances, more palpable than ever, but also

fragmenting: a sense of indefinite instability and uncertainty is not something that all

immigrants are willing to experience for long, so many have opted for transitioning into

metèques, according to the job opportunities offered by the Mexican and Canadian

States vis-à-vis this crisis. Many others are even quitting the ‘American dream’ and going

back home.

In the end, it is evident that there is an urgency for rethinking, from its roots, how policies

are designed in order to provide borderlands that take place with more dignifying

conditions for everyone: because they will keep emerging and transforming, while

structural violence in a post-neoliberal remains alive.

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