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Paper short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the migrants from Venezuela and those providing different kinds of aid in Colombia, this paper explores how pre-existing histories and practices of helping those in need inform the emerging forms of humanitarian assistance in the Venezuelan 'migratory crisis'.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on the encounters between migrants from Venezuela and those providing different kinds of aid in the city of Cali (Colombia), this paper explores how pre-existing histories and vernacular ideas and practices of helping those in need inform the newly emerging forms of humanitarian assistance in the context of Venezuelan 'migratory crisis'. Both for migrants and those who are helping them (mostly religious, NGO or voluntary-based groupings, which were more recently joined by international organisations), the city of Cali has come to be relationally understood as a 'more welcoming' place. This particular conception of self as 'caring' for others derives not only from the regional histories of past migrations and relations with Venezuela, but it is also co-constituted by experiences of co-living and dealing with a high amount diverse bodies of internal migrants (internally displaced persons arriving due to the violent conflict in Colombia) and past humanitarian projects and interventions. This paper examines emerging practices of helping and modes of understanding the migrants alongside shifting scales and entanglements of the past and present temporalities of humanitarian interventions. It explores how the previous international, national and local organisations working with the 'internal displaced' of armed conflict in Colombia attempt to re-translate and move their previous experiences and knowledge of interacting and working with internally displaced persons to the different kinds of new (Venezuelan) migrants and perceptions of 'suffering subjects'.