Uncertain Citizenship. Megan Ryburn

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СКАЧАТЬ Arica, having checked with the terminal authorities that I was allowed to do this. The posters advertised the support services available through the Asociación and expressed a positive message about migration. One of the fences I had selected was next to a taxi rank, where there were five male drivers leaning on their cars, waiting for passengers. There was no one else around. They watched me intently as I set to putting up the posters, and one finally said loudly to the other, “¿Qué hace esa gringa poniendo posters sobre los inmigrantes?” (“What’s that gringa doing putting up posters about immigrants?”). Then another turned and addressed this question to me, before he and two of the others let rip with a tirade of antimigrant vitriol.

      Shocked, I gave a stuttering explanation of the services the Asociación offered and why it offered them, stating that the terminal authorities were supportive of the posters. Then I turned around and continued putting up the poster I had been pinning. The most aggressive driver taunted me, saying, “We’ll just rip them down.” Trying not to show I was affected, I finished what I was doing and walked into the bus terminal without turning around. Shaken and tearful, I also felt impotent and inadequate. I knew that no matter how unpleasant this incident had been, it was nothing compared to the everyday racism to which many of the migrants I worked with were subjected, which I could never comprehend, given my white privilege. I felt I should have done a better job of defending my antiracist principles and given a less tongue-tied response.

      A very different response generated by perceptions of my race, class, and gender, and of the research I was doing, was wariness, particularly on the part of some migrant organization representatives. This was the case during my initial encounters with Corazón de Tinkus, the migrant dance fraternity with which I ultimately rehearsed and performed. The group leader, Antony, was extremely troubled by the difficulties and discrimination faced by Bolivian migrants in Chile and was unwilling to engage with me on the issue of Bolivian migration to Chile until he was certain that I shared his views on and sensitivity to the issues migrants faced. He also questioned whether my project would be beneficial to me but not to those I worked with. I thought, and still think, that this was an admirable and valid concern, one that I must continually try to address. At the time—and in general in my conversations with those who were involved in the research—I explained that realistically the short-term, direct benefits would be small, and that I hoped that there might be longer-term (if still limited) outcomes through the eventual sharing of the results of the project with academics, migrant organizations, and policy makers. I also told Antony about my connection to the Asociación, explaining that I always passed on information about it to migrant participants who did not know about its services. In this way, I tried to ensure that my encounters with migrant participants would have some direct potential benefit for them if they were in need of legal or other assistance.

      In terms of the relationships I formed with migrant participants more broadly, above all these were colored by the great kindness, openness, and trust with which I was received, once any first concerns about confidentiality and anonymity had been addressed. We would laugh and joke together, and I would share experiences of my life, too. The terms of address in initially reserved relationships would move from the formal Usted to the informal tú, and women who had started off calling me señorita came to refer to me instead by the affectionate amiga or mamita. Nevertheless, there were still moments that served as important reminders of the differences between our life situations. I remember drawing in a sharp breath at the end of one exchange with Magdalena, who worked as a live-in nana (maid). A serious conversation had evolved into kidding around about managing relationships and juggling commitments, and we were both laughing when suddenly she said, touching my arm, “Hey, I know! I could come and work as your nana and look after your children [when you have them]!” Struck by how easily she said this, I laughed awkwardly and made a mumbled comment about how I wouldn’t have a nana, and the conversation moved on. The truth inherent in her observation about our vastly different circumstances stayed with me, however.

      I feel very fortunate to have been invited to glimpse the lives of the migrants I worked with and to have been trusted to share the stories told to me. These stories, and the living and working conditions I witnessed, often moved me profoundly and certainly stood in stark contrast to my own privilege. I do not see either this emotional response, or awareness of the power implications of my own positionality, as things to be written out of these pages in a mythical pursuit of “objectivity.” Rather, my analysis is led by my sense of how wrong it is that these imbalances and injustices can exist.

      ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

      I structure this analysis primarily around the four spaces of transnational citizenship I identified in the research: legal, economic, social, and political. I consider migrants’ relationships to each through the lens of uncertainty and take into account the overlaps among them. Prior to this, however, chapter 1, “Citizenship, Migration, and Uncertainty,” expands on the conceptual framing of the book, bringing together literature from political philosophy, on citizenship in Latin America, and from migration studies. In doing so, it also sketches histories of citizenship and migration in Chile and Bolivia. This is complemented by chapter 2, “Places of Uncertain Citizenship,” which moves from this more theoretical discussion to focus on lived experiences of uncertain citizenship. In it, I construct detailed ethnographic accounts of six “places of uncertain citizenship” inhabited and passed through by the migrants whose stories form the center of this book. These places were nodal points within overlapping transnational spaces of citizenship; they were physical manifestations of what it means to live uncertain citizenship. This embodied understanding of the lived reality of uncertain citizenship, articulated through particular places, provides the jumping-off point for exploration of migrants’ relationships to transnational spaces of citizenship.

      Chapter 3, “Papeleo,” begins this exploration by examining migrants’ multiple transitions between (ir)regular legal statuses as they are excluded from, and seek inclusion within, the transnational space of legal citizenship. Centered around the motif of papeleo (paperwork/red tape), the chapter examines how this transnational space of legal citizenship and migrants’ positions within it are constructed. It suggests that this occurs through interactions between legislation as it exists “on paper,” its (often discriminatory) application by officials “through paper,” and the practices of “presenting papers” in which migrants engage, sometimes with the support of a migrant organization.

      Leading on from this, chapter 4, “¿El Sueño Chileno?,” is concerned with economic citizenship and the quest for el sueño chileno (the Chilean dream).⁹ Taking a transnational perspective on economic citizenship and comprehending it as more than just access to decent work, it seeks first to capture the economic marginalization in Bolivia that often acted as a catalyst for pursuing el sueño chileno. The latter part of the chapter reflects on the degree to which el sueño chileno was realized after migrants crossed the border. It has a particular focus on employment experiences in wholesale garment retail, agriculture, and domestic work and includes reflections on a case of trafficking for labor exploitation uncovered in the course of my fieldwork. The chapter considers the ways in which both structural processes and the agentic practices of migrants contribute to their ability to access the space of economic citizenship across borders, and thus to their experiences of uncertainty.

      The emphasis on both structure and agency carries over into chapter 5, “Solidaridad,” which uncovers the degree to which those with whom I worked are often excluded transnationally from social citizenship. The transnational space of social citizenship is defined in terms of tangible rights to shelter, education, and health care, but also encompasses the less tangible right to family life and the necessity of having “social support.” Migrants’ experiences in relation to each of these domains are discussed, highlighting the worrying tendency toward a lack of solidaridad (solidarity) from Chilean service providers; a case study of six migrant women’s experiences of pregnancy and birth СКАЧАТЬ