Negotiating the border: Contending with constraints and creating opportunity from Venezuela to Peru

Abstract

Utilizing a feminist geopolitical lens, this article examines the accounts of 18 Venezuelans who migrated from Venezuela since 2015. I make two main arguments. First, I expand accounts that focus on restrictive mobility regimes in countries receiving migrants to also look at how governments such as Venezuela’s, along with their accompanying border management strategies, limit Venezuelans’ mobility. Many scholars argue that the regulation of borders extends beyond physical territorial boundaries. Here, I show the diverse ways in which Venezuelan government actions impose border constraints both within Venezuela and beyond. Second, recent studies examine migrant management as resulting from an assemblage of different actors and practices, including humanitarian organizations, travel agencies and others. I add to this literature to suggest that acts of solidarity and support from fellow travelers, local individuals who are not part of any formal group, and social media accounts should also be considered part of migrant regimes, shaping border permeability. Policies are reworked through embodied encounters between migrants and a range of other actors in spaces as varied as buses, border checkpoints and food lines, and speak to the importance of multi-scalar accounts to understand migration experiences.