Operation shelter as humanitarian infrastructure: material and normative renderings of Venezuelan migration in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article stiches together a conceptual discussion on ‘humanitarian infrastructure’ with research amid Venezuelan migrants, asylum seekers, army personnel, governmental officers and envoys of humanitarian agencies responsible for implementing ‘Operation Shelter’ – described by the Brazilian government as a large humanitarian task force offering assistance to Venezuelans entering Brazil’s province of Roraima. The article’s goal is to explore the material and normative renderings of humanitarian infrastructure that enables migrants’ desire to move, while also governing and making sense of Venezuelan mobility. We suggest that the bureaucratic split of Venezuelans into two temporally different migration figures – asylum seeker and humanitarian migrant – is illustrative of an ambivalence of enacting control and freedom. We explore how such ambivalence is manifested in attempts to discipline migrants’ bodies and movements along built, technological and logistical humanitarian infrastructure, with consequences for engagements between border authorities and migrants.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum
• humanitarian infrastructure
• Venezuela
• migration
• border control

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Operation Shelter [History]. Retrieved from https://www.gov.br/acolhida/historico/. Access date: 7 March 2020. The following paragraph refers to the same source.

2. We conducted three visits to Boa Vista and Pacaraima, individually and as part of a team of researchers, between July 2018 and February 2019. We held interviews with a dozen officials and humanitarian workers, migrants and asylum seekers as well as local NGO and researchers. We visited reception centers, shelters and police headquarters where we observed routines and procedures during a total of 21 days spent in both cities. The ethics protocol has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of omitted, where the project was initially based.

3. And some could not have all documents. For example, all Venezuelan children under 9 years old do not have a document a birth certificate with photo and information on parents. Families with children under 9 could not fulfill the bureaucratic requirements of resolution 126, therefore applying automatically to refugee status.

4. Information on the new system can be found at https://www.justica.gov.br/seus-direitos/refugio/sisconare.

5. 70% of Brazilians have access to internet connection, mostly though smartphones. More data on internet in Brazil can be found at https://www.pagbrasil.com/insights/digital-in-2019-brazil/.

6. For public information on the Operation, the website of the Ministry of Defense provides press releases. Information on total number of Venezuelans included in the Operation, see: https://www.defesa.gov.br/noticias/61414-governo-federal-lanca-nova-fase-da-operacao-acolhida-para-acelerar-interiorizacao-de-venezuelanos.

7. The Waraos are described as an indigenous group living in Venezuelan territory. They constitute an important part of migrants arriving in Brazil and present specific challenges in terms of protection and regularization. See IOM (2019) for detailed legal aspects of reception of indigenous Venezuelans in Northern Brazil.

8. We are grateful to our editors and peer-reviewers for helping us to clarify this point.

Additional information

Funding

CNPq/Brazil (308023-2019/6)]

Notes on contributors

Carolina Moulin Aguiar

Carolina Moulin holds a PhD in Political Science by McMaster University. She is Professor at the School of Economics and the Centre for Regional Planning and Development (CEDEPLAR) at Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  She is Executive-Secretary of Brazilian Association  of International Relations (2019-2021) and Researcher for the Brazilian National Council for Scientific Research CNPQ/Productivity (2020-2023). She is associate editor of Review of International Studies (2020-2024).

Bruno Magalhães

Bruno Magalhães holds a Doctorate in Political Science and International Studies from Open University and is currently professor at the Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.