Paper short abstract:

Extra-continental migrants in Central America have provoked the emergence of a new, state-run transit infrastructure. By disentangling local navigations of this infrastructure, this paper provides insight into the fraught attempts of Central American states to regain control over transit migration.

Paper long abstract:

The journeys of African, Cuban and Haitian migrants across Central America have provoked the emergence of a new, state-run transit infrastructure, including documents, reception centers and (informal) policing. Ultimately, this infrastructure is designed to control the mobility of people on their way to North America, converting a diversity of migrants into a designated group of transit migrants that needs to be invisibilized, revised and re-directed by the Central American states they pass through. However, far from constituting a concerted approach, this infrastructure does not materialize equally along the route. As state officials, other local actors and migrants themselves perform and navigate emerging infrastructures amidst changing geopolitical dynamics, this 'social navigation' in 'a moving environment' (Vigh, 2009) shapes these infrastructures in turn. The paper is based on research with so-called extra-continental migrants along the borders of Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. To disentangle the navigations of transit infrastructure across Central America, the paper explores the following questions: where and when do state officials and migrants interact, and consolidate the emerging transit infrastructure? In what ways becomes this infrastructure embedded in the diverse localities that make up migrants' journeys? And how do migrants interrupt this infrastructure, and/or deal with its interruptions? By disentangling local navigations of transit infrastructure, the paper provides insight into the fraught attempts of Central American states to regain control over transit migration, and the ways in which these attempts shape border landscapes and migrant experiences alike.