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Migrant Residents in Search of Residences
Locating Structural Violence at the Interstices of Bureaucracies
in Conflict and Society
Author:
Megan Sheehan
Megan Sheehan
College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University msheehan001@csbsju.edu
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Abstract
Latin American migration to Chile has increased exponentially over the past 20 years. As migrants settle in Santiago, they face numerous articulations of bureaucracy—at entry, in visa processing, in labor regulations, and in housing law. This article charts a central paradox of migrant experiences with two discordant bureaucratic entities in Chile. Migrants are frequently able to acquire residency documents, yet they are often unable to enter into formal rental agreements or easily access adequate housing. Drawing on data collected during 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Santiago, Chile, I explore migrants’ lived experience of bureaucracy. As migrants navigate the processes involved in attaining visas and in securing housing, their experiences expose the interstices of bureaucracy, sites of disjuncture between contrasting bureaucratic entities and realms. These bureaucratic interstices are critical sites where structural violence is fostered, normalized, and made invisible.
Contributor Notes
MEGAN SHEEHAN is Assistant Professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University (CSB/SJU). Before teaching at CSB/SJU, she received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Arizona and held a postdoctoral research fellowship in Latin American Studies at Lehigh University. Her research examines the recent influx of Latin American migrants to Chile, exploring how migration impacts and changes urban areas. Email: msheehan001@csbsju.edu