Entre caravanear e acampar: um olhar crítico sobre o êxodo centro-americano contemporâneo

Abstract

This research intends, in general, to construct a critical look at the contemporary Central American exodus by considering the interaction between the practices of migration caravans and informal camps erected in the cities of northern Mexico, based on the understanding that the immigrants use the transit methods of the collective and visible body and the individual and invisible body, with their respective strategies, to move around. For such, a dialogue is proposed between the theoretical-conceptual discussion of Critical Migration Studies and the empirical landscape of the Central America - Mexico - United States migration corridor to understand the immigrant as an active agent of this dynamic of crossing in parallel with the actions by States to exhaust them. This interaction was materialized in three central dimensions: (i) understanding the stages of Central American migration before migration caravans and informal camps; (ii) in the delineation of US and Mexican migration policies, especially those formulated and implemented during the Donald Trump government; and, finally, (iii) in the characterization of the double use of methods of the collective and visible body and the individual and invisible body by Central Americans when entering both migration caravans and informal camps. It was therefore found to be essential to expand studies on the contemporary Central American exodus in two senses: in a reflection on the bias of immobility with informal camps and in an approach to how these two migratory practices, caravans and camps, are considered collective actions that are also realized in the individual sphere of everyday life when migrating from Central America through Mexico