Efficiency and Criminalization in Military-Humanitarianism

This article discusses the humanitarian response to human mobility and migration. However, mobility cannot be taken at face value—it is not inherently positive, negative, or neutral (McNevin 2019). Viewing mobility as intrinsically positive or powerful fundamentally enhances inequalities that further the division between immobility and mobility (Franquesa 2011). Rather than focusing on either phenomenon separately, Jaume Franquesa draws attention to “how the dialectical interplay between mobilization and immobilization produces reality” (2011: 1013). Thus, mobility itself, is in motion—it is contingent and shaped by myriad processes and ongoing events. As this article will demonstrate, temporal structures play a key role in governing the (im)mobilities of urban migrants and refugees.

Scholars have investigated how migrant mobilities are intertwined with various temporalities, with many focusing on the waiting experienced by those seeking asylum (Khosravi 2010; Rotter 2016). Jennifer Hyndman and Wenona Giles (2011) suggest that the value of sedentarism in modern Western cultures results in the construction of migrant mobility as suspicious and threatening. They compare this with the act of waiting while immobilized in a refugee camp, which is deemed passive and acceptable. As Ghassan Hage (2009: 78) notes, this can be likened to the “heroic” act of “enduring the crisis” of immobility/waiting, rather than trying to “jump the queue.” Further, as Hyndman and Giles (2011: 363) attest, “those who stay still are viewed as genuine, immobile, depoliticized, feminized, while those on the move are potential liabilities at best, and security threats at worst.” Migrants who are on the move are thus subject to practices that aim to manage, order, and securitize their mobilities as a means of controlling the population perceived as threatening.

These (humanitarian) practices are entangled with neoliberal narratives of securitization. I consider this in two distinct but interconnected ways: through notions of efficiency and criminalization. These narratives of securitization stem from neoliberal ideologies that seek political and economic order through efficiency and cultivate subjectivities by reinforcing social norms (Ganti 2014). First, scholars such as Simon Reid-Henry (2014: 425) have argued that the modern state utilizes humanitarianism as a means of governing populations efficiently—understanding humanitarianism as “liberal diagnostic.” This exposes a paradox, whereby the state aims to deliver care to vulnerable populations, while simultaneously controlling them in an effective manner.

Building on this work, Polly Pallister-Wilkins (2018a: 996) suggests that care and control are “co-constitutive parts of a process of rationalization” that motivates humanitarians through logics of compassion, while at the same time working with the state to intervene as efficiently as possible. This is exemplified in the European hotspots that Pallister-Wilkins (2018a) investigates, which serve as both points of registration and border control. These hallmarks of neoliberal governance are also evident in Brazil and typically rely on the military for the delivery of humanitarian care, as they possess the materials, actors, and infrastructures to efficiently respond to crises. However, as this article shows, this produces a mechanism of mobility governance and is reflective of the ways hospitality or “welcoming” is inherently conditional and even hostile (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2016: 466).

Second, neoliberal narratives of securitization have emerged through a criminalization discourse that posits the figure of the migrant as suspicious or threatening. This stems from an ideology of neoliberalism that seeps into all aspects of social life, shaping subjectivities in relation to independence and responsibility (Ganti 2014). This discourse surrounding migrants emerges in political, media, and public arenas, and often involves the association of immigration with criminalization—or “crimmigration” (Stumpf 2006). Leanne Weber and Rebecca Powell (2020: 252) point to the “new forms of crimmigration” that include the pre-emptive deportation of non-citizens because of not only criminal behavior but character grounds and “their perceived associations, ‘risky’ behaviors or suspicious associations.” As such, crimmigration discourses are often used to justify the mistreatment of immigrants based on perceived threats of violence, as well as notions of draining the welfare system or posing a risk to social and cultural norms (Riva 2017: 315). These notions of crimmigration are similarly constructed in Brazil, fusing Venezuelan migration with an increase in crime (Correia 2017). This emerges in the role of Brazil's military in humanitarian intervention and perpetuates neoliberal ideologies of security that position incoming Venezuelans as threats or criminals.

Methodology

This research is based on fieldwork conducted in northern Brazil during October–December 2019, where I stayed in the capital city of Boa Vista for two months. I worked as an unpaid volunteer with a large civil society group, whose focus was on hygiene provision and education for Venezuelan migrants living without shelter. Daily tasks included translating documents between English and Portuguese, such as the “success stories” of various programs, collating data on “spontaneous occupations” or informal settlements, distributing hygiene kits, attending meetings with key stakeholders, and visiting sites with team members conducting surveys with Venezuelans living without shelter. My position as a volunteer-researcher enabled access to various sites across Boa Vista and connected me to humanitarian workers and other stakeholders with knowledge of, and insight into, the emergency response in Brazil (Millen 2000; Ranabahu 2017; Vogler 2007). During my volunteer hours, I drew on methods such as “following” (Billo and Mountz 2016) and “hanging out” (Rodgers 2004) with Venezuelan and Brazilian volunteers and aid workers (for further discussion, see Alexander 2023).

With an established sense of trust and rapport, this approach meant that I was able to engage in multiple in-depth discussions about the practices and challenges of the humanitarian response that were raised by the volunteers and staff themselves (Billo and Mountz 2016). This not only provided insight into the management of the humanitarian intervention, but also an understanding of diverse social and political views inherent in such a response (Mackenzie et al. 2007). In addition, I conducted six formal semi-structured interviews with humanitarian workers and two with military colonels. I further engaged in multiple informal conversations with humanitarian volunteers and staff from various organizations, such as Fraternidade Sem Fronteiras, Associação Voluntários para o Serviço Internacional (AVSI), and the United Nations. I spoke with a total of 35 people, including local policing personnel, military officers, university students, Venezuelan migrants, taxi drivers, a university lecturer in anthropology, and an advocate from the homeless workers movement. All participants referenced here have been anonymized by using pseudonyms. After my time in the field, I remained in contact with some of the Brazilian and Venezuelan aid workers I met and conducted follow-up conversations throughout 2020 and 2021 about the situation in Boa Vista (particularly in relation to COVID-19).

Furthermore, I drew on spatial ethnography methods (Kim 2015) to examine how the physicality of humanitarian sites intersected with the timed routines and power dynamics of everyday processes. I was given a “tour” of the dormitory and the WASH facilities by a Venezuelan humanitarian staff member, Daniela. I observed and noted the physical aspects and temporal schedules of the sites, as well as the interactions between aid workers, army personnel and people making use of the facilities. This provided a grounded approach to exploring space and was analyzed alongside interview data and detailed fieldnotes from informal conversations. By studying the times and spaces of these sites, it became clear that the two phenomena were interconnected (Conlon 2011) and together, spatiotemporal infrastructures came to manage the mobilities of urban migrants and refugees.

While volunteering enabled access and insight into the humanitarian and mobility infrastructures that govern everyday life, in doing so, I was bound to the organization's approaches and practices, thereby shaping the research project itself (Pascucci 2019). I negotiated the challenges of being a volunteer-researcher in my everyday tasks, recognizing that I faced limitations to implementing changes within the organization itself (Humphris and Yarris 2022: 75–76). Scholars have long explored the ethical implications of engaging in and delivering humanitarian work (Jordon and Moser 2020; Ramakrishnan and Thieme 2022; Redfield 2012; Ticktin 2006, 2011), with Liisa Malkki (2015) importantly drawing attention to the positionalities and motivations of humanitarians. My own positionality as a white, Australian academic volunteering with an organization that received English-speaking foreign workers meant that I was largely viewed as part of the humanitarian system, particularly by migrants visiting the offices. This positionality was further reinforced by my transnational mobility, whereby humanitarian intervention maintains and (re)produces uneven mobility capabilities: humanitarians may travel freely, while migrants and refugees may remain forcibly immobilized and subject to bordering (Farah 2020; Sheller 2012).

Further to this, my volunteer work did not enable the formation of ongoing relationships with individuals living without shelter. This was due to the office only opening at certain times for the collection of once-off hygiene kits. Recognizing the ethical concerns of my positionality and the limited capacity to establish trust, while being committed to the principle of “do no harm” (Mackenzie et al. 2007), I shifted the focus of my research to the infrastructures and systems of mobility governance in which I played a role. Although I was unable to interview migrants living without shelter, by connecting and speaking with volunteers and paid staff from Venezuela, I was able to gain a better understanding of key issues, as well as the various spatiotemporal mechanisms of the intervention and their functions.

Spaces of Institutional Care

The two institutional spaces of care discussed in this article respond to Venezuelan migrants and refugees living without shelter. Despite the humanitarian framing, these spaces reveal the direct involvement of state intervention. These spaces aim to provide temporary shelter and hygiene amenities, and importantly, are crucial for many individuals who may otherwise have no access to accommodation or facilities. Both sites are located behind the busy international bus terminal and are situated within 100 meters of each other. Prior to their construction, incoming Venezuelan migrants had set up improvised shelter, sleeping in tents and under trees (Mello and Raquel 2020). However, an operation led by the Civil Defense and Military Police in 2017 removed and relocated these migrants to a training gymnasium while a new site reopened in its place (Chavez 2017; Chavez and Oliveira 2017; see Alexander 2023 for further discussion). Infrastructure was designed and erected by military personnel, marking the transformation from informal urban spaces to institutional sites with top-down governance.

The first site provided a series of tents with a capacity for 1,000 people. It was referred to as the rodoviária, named from the Portuguese term “bus station.” Although the rodoviária appeared to function as a type of homeless shelter—closing during the day and opening in the late afternoon—the actual word “shelter” was typically avoided when referring to the site. Instead, words such as “support post,” “overnight area,” or “refuge” were used (Correia Lopes 2019; Boa Vista Já 2019). This gestures to the temporary logics of the site, and here, I refer to it as an overnight dormitory. Despite its temporary nature, the dormitory operated as a planned space of “control, custody and care,” likened to an institutional camp (Martin et al. 2020: 755). Bruna, from UNHCR explained that although the army actively worked within the rodoviária and provided security, the general operations were led by the local municipality. This means that the municipality made decisions about the dormitory while working closely with Operation Welcome. This was one of the few sites in Boa Vista that was not directly managed by the UNHCR, which is present in formal refugee shelters. Instead, humanitarian organizations and civil society groups serviced the dormitory as needed, for example with the delivery of provisions such as hygiene kits.

View Full Size

Street view of back entry to rodoviária dormitory.¹ Map data © 2024 Google.

Citation: Migration and Society 7, 1; 10.3167/arms.2024.070105

• Download Figure
• Download figure as PowerPoint slide

View Full Size

Mud map of the rodoviária dormitory (drawn by author 2022).

Citation: Migration and Society 7, 1; 10.3167/arms.2024.070105

• Download Figure
• Download figure as PowerPoint slide

The second site provided Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities and was designed to support people sleeping at the rodoviária, as well as others who were living without shelter. During my fieldwork, this was the only WASH facility in the city. It was constructed by the Operation Welcome taskforce in collaboration with a civil society group. The taskforce, including the military, and the municipal government were responsible for the management and security of this site (Presidência da República: Casa Civil n.d.). Amenities included a block of showers and sinks for washing clothes. Unlike the rodoviária, humanitarian agencies worked within the WASH facilities. This included the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which supported children and families, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which addressed sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence. The WASH facilities were open during the day from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., with scheduled times for shower use. Those accessing the facilities were permitted to wait there during the day, either at the undercover area near the offices or in the empty plot designated for drying clothes.

View Full Size

Street view of entrance to WASH site.² Map data © 2024 Google.

Citation: Migration and Society 7, 1; 10.3167/arms.2024.070105

• Download Figure
• Download figure as PowerPoint slide

View Full Size

Mud map of WASH site (drawn by author 2022).

Citation: Migration and Society 7, 1; 10.3167/arms.2024.070105

• Download Figure
• Download figure as PowerPoint slide

Temporalities and (Im)mobilities

From where I stand, I can't see where the tents end and the road begins again. There is a strange sense of being cramped and contained, and yet, unbounded by the vastness of the space. We are the only people walking through [the dormitory] at this time, and I feel the urge to whisper, so as to match the eerie silence that surrounds us. (Author reflections from fieldnotes, January 2020).

Migrant and refugee temporalities are entangled with their (im)mobilities. This relationship becomes evident when considering the structures that aim to secure a mobile urban population frequenting institutional spaces of (temporary) care. This is revealed with the timed access to these spaces and the passing of time within them. Most migrants accessing the rodoviária dormitory—with the exception of categorically vulnerable persons—would enter at 4:00 p.m. and exit the following morning. Men were required to leave at 7:00 a.m. and women at 8:00 a.m. Overnight, the lights went out at 10:00 p.m., and migrants were expected to stay in their tents. During my conversation with army officer Carol, she explained that access to the dormitory was on a “first-come-first-serve” basis, tents were not allocated, and individuals would have to take their belongings with them when they leave. Although the spatialities of some institutional camps, and indeed makeshift shelters and settlements, can be transformed by their inhabitants (Martin et al. 2020), the temporally bounded nature of the overnight rodoviária site placed limitations on this resistance.

This distinct operation of the dormitory reflects the ideologies of infrastructures of containment (Esposito et al. 2020). The dormitory enforced a structured rhythm of life, confining individuals in an enclosed space for a predetermined time (Coletta et al. 2020)—not unlike the imposed routines of everyday life in carceral spaces, such as Manus Prison (Boochani 2019). The timed access and routine of the rodoviária aimed to disrupt migrants’ autonomous movements (Garelli and Tazzioli 2018), and by doing so, governing agencies exerted control over the everyday mobilities of migrants accessing the dormitory.

These routines, created by top-down governance from the armed forces and the local municipality, ordered migrant mobilities in ways that are easier to manage (Turnbull 2014). As Sarah Turnbull notes, disciplining time in such a manner places limitations on how much (and in what ways) migrants may enact political agency. These temporal infrastructures of containment reflect a biopolitical mode of governing that seeks to channel and manage migrant movement in, out and through the rodoviária (Garelli and Tazzioli 2018). Additionally, this temporal ordering required migrants to leave and re-enter the site at specific times, materializing as a form of “forced mobility” (Bourlessas 2018). Much like the homeless population Panos Bourlessas refers to, Venezuelan migrants staying overnight at the dormitory were “forced” to leave in the morning, remaining mobile throughout the city during the day. During my “tour” of the facilities with Daniela from UNFPA, she explained that migrants typically remain close to the dormitory during this time to ensure they would be able to access a tent when the site reopened. Thus, this temporal infrastructure shaped the dormitory into a “space of exclusion”: a seemingly paradoxical site that served as a site of care during the night but prevented access during the day (Bourlessas 2018: 752). Turning to look at the WASH facilities, however, complicates this understanding of “forced mobility.” As noted from my observations,

We pass an army officer and step into a huge, empty lot. I plod along the soft, sand-like dirt and look at the surroundings: a few desiccated trees with thin branches and leaves growing sporadically. There are a few long clotheslines hanging up high and people waiting in whatever shade they can find—some standing, and others sitting on the ground. There's not much to do but to wait in the unforgiving heat for their washing to dry. (Author reflections from fieldnotes, January 2020)

While those staying at the rodoviária were forced to remain mobile during the day, there was a tension between their (im)mobility and temporality. This emerged from the temporal structures of the WASH site and was illustrated in the micro-practice of waiting evoked in the fieldnotes above. While many individuals staying at the rodoviária or informally in other parts of the city may have remained mobile during the day—consuming breakfast or lunch at a nearby church, conducting or searching for (in)formal work on the streets, arranging travel plans to leave Boa Vista, or finding reprieve from the heat in the shade of trees or buildings—there were many who spent time making use of the WASH facilities. As noted in my observations and conversations with humanitarian workers, some migrants would shower and move on, while others would wash their clothes or bedding in the sinks provided and wait while they dry on the clotheslines.

Importantly, unlike other examples of migrants and refugees being subject to waiting times (Conlon 2011; Topak 2020), the waiting that occurred for those using these WASH facilities was not directly imposed from upper levels of governance. Those accessing the WASH site were not inherently forced to wait for their clothes to dry; nor did they have to wait at the WASH site in order to receive humanitarian aid or resources. However, when I spoke with Daniela from UNFPA, she explained that many migrants waited due to the fear of having their clothes stolen by other migrants. Despite regular patrols by military personnel, individuals using the facilities had to exercise a level of caution by waiting in the empty lot for their clothes to dry. Rather than seeing this act of waiting as a trivial experience, this practice reveals a broader image of temporal uncertainty and immobility that many Venezuelan migrants and refugees without shelter may experience.

Despite being permitted to work in Brazil, the difficulty of finding employment may evoke a sense of “enforced idleness in which people have little to do other than wait,” an experience commonly noted by asylum seekers who are prohibited from working (Griffiths 2014: 1996). For others, the sense of being “in-between” places while preparing for further travel may produce temporal uncertainties (Roth 2021), with some waiting on bureaucratic processes of internal resettlement or to save enough for self-funded travel. During my conversation with military colonel Fernanda and army officer Carol, they expressed how difficult it was for Venezuelans to find jobs in Boa Vista while they waited to be resettled in another city. Carol plainly affirmed “there are no jobs.”³ These “experiential temporalities,” Melanie Griffiths (2014) suggests, reflect a “long, slowing time of waiting,” or what she terms “sticky time,” that may slow even further into stagnation or “suspended time.” Sticky time may produce vulnerability, precarity, and violence for migrants who are waiting within temporary spaces (Roth 2021: 265). This waiting is akin to the immobilization of people within refugee camps, which is viewed as acceptable and manageable, as opposed to the risky mobilities of people on the move (Hyndman and Giles 2011), such as those waiting in public spaces discussed later in this article. In this case, people on the move represent urban refugees and migrants who have entered Brazil through legal routes but are viewed as hypermobile—and therefore risky—due to living without adequate shelter in the city.

Structuring Mundane Life

In the morning there were about 1,200 people waiting, but since the rest intervals of the military guards are long, many get discouraged and they go. (Daniela, November 2021).

This section further discusses the military-humanitarian structuring of everyday life for migrants living without shelter. This mobile population—often perceived as suspicious or threatening within neoliberal narratives—were more difficult to control or manage than those residing in formal shelters. Vinicius, a Brazilian humanitarian worker who was leading the hygiene project at the civil society group that I volunteered with, told me in a follow-up discussion in October 2021 that “the structure and the rules are very coercive” within these shelters. He explained that all aspects of life are temporally structured in the shelters: “a lot of migrants say they cannot adapt in the UN shelters, especially the time to get up and to get in [. . . and] the time to eat every day.” The structured times of the WASH site and the rodoviária opening times indicated a similar function: “risky” Venezuelan time was slowed and therefore easily managed.

Access to the showers, for example, was permitted between 9:00 a.m. and noon, and then again from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. However, as Daniela explained above, the military guards would take long rest breaks during these opening times. This forced migrants to wait until the guards return to be able to take a shower, which meant that many got discouraged and left. A similar phenomenon can be identified in the Israeli occupation of Palestine, where Julie Peteet (2018) points to the temporal practices that control and coerce Palestinian mobility. Albeit infinitely more intrusive than in Brazil, Peteet draws attention to an important connection between waiting and power. She notes that where mobilities are slowed and surveilled at checkpoints, one's own “control over the timing and rhythm of movement is suspended” (2018: 50).

At the WASH facilities in Boa Vista, Venezuelans’ time and, therefore, their mobility, were similarly subject to military temporal practices. Enforced waiting to access showers revealed the ways autonomous control over timing and movement were structured by the military governance of humanitarian space. Furthermore, Venezuelan migrants were subject to not only temporal practices of waiting and uncertainty but also surveillance. Military guards regularly patrolled the various areas, observing individuals while they washed clothes or bedding in the sinks, waited for their belongings to dry, or used the showers. Özgün Topak (2020: 1873), drawing on Foucault, suggests that waiting is a micro-practice of temporal regulation and a “central category through which the biopolitical border operates and creates biopolitical consequences for migrants.” By interacting with other key practices such as surveillance, “waiting as a form of time management” highlights the entanglement of temporal and biopolitical practices in humanitarian spaces (Topak 2020: 1863).

However, while imposed waiting can be viewed as a technique of power (Auyero 2013; Peteet 2018; Topak 2020), waiting at the WASH facilities in Boa Vista reflected a different, though connected, approach. Waiting here emerged as a consequence of the military-humanitarian structuring of migrants’ mundane life. It signaled an ordering linked to neoliberal narratives of securitization that position people on the move—especially those not confined to formal refugee shelters—as risky, criminal, and/or threatening. Although not enforced, I observed this waiting at the WASH site, as written in my fieldnotes “We waited for [two Venezuelan volunteers] to conduct the survey with people who were sitting under trees and had [received] hygiene kits . . . There was barely any shade . . . and people huddled together” (3 December 2019). This waiting occurred because of the daytime closure of the rodoviária dormitory, the need to remain in close proximity to drying clothes, access times to the showers, and military temporal practices of taking breaks. While overcoming waiting requires gaining control of one's time and mobility (Peteet 2018), the temporal structures of everyday life imposed by military-humanitarian agencies meant that Venezuelan migrants at the WASH site were restricted from autonomously organizing their routines and mobility.

The waiting that occurred at the WASH site is reflective of Brazil's military-humanitarian approach to managing mobile populations. Those who accessed the site were migrants living without shelter, whose limited access to secure housing and employment, accompanied by their visible urban mobilities, rendered them as perceived threats to state security. Unlike those who were residing within formal refugee shelters in the city—subject to daily routines created by shelter management—the quotidian mobility of migrants without shelter was framed as threatening and more difficult to manage (Hyndman and Giles 2011). Attempts at controlling this mobility materialized through acts such as urban securitization, the governance of “spontaneous occupations” (as noted in a meeting with three military officers, the Secretary of State, and various humanitarian representatives from IOM and Médecins Sans Frontiers [8 December 2019]), as well as spatiotemporal practices investigated in the rodoviária dormitory. This revealed the underlying aims of managing and structuring daytime mobilities at the WASH facility and nighttime mobilities at the rodoviária dormitory.

Despite the provision of humanitarian spaces of care, the lack of infrastructure where the clotheslines were located meant that individuals had to wait in uncomfortable conditions: sitting on the sandy ground with little shade or reprieve from the heat. As I noted: “The sun was glaring . . . I noticed an old, small piece of foam on the ground with a baby sleeping on top” (fieldnotes, 3 December 2019). Two men stood close by while the baby rested, demonstrating the difficult conditions that families faced when waiting at the WASH site. This included having no access to bathrooms and being under surveillance by military personnel. These conditions and the act of waiting are normalized in displacement contexts; particularly in protracted refugee settings, waiting has “become the rule, not the exception” (Hyndman and Giles 2011: 362). In other scenarios where power is exercised by welfare providers, waiting emerges as “normal, expected, inevitable,” thus, illustrating the insidious nature of control operating through humanitarianism (Auyero 2012: 157).

Visibility and Waiting in the City

Although a seemingly subtle phenomenon, the temporal regulation of everyday life had consequences to the lived experiences of Venezuelan migrants. It (re)produced precarity for people experiencing xenophobia when moving around the city. As noted in a conversation with a Venezuelan volunteer: “[a Venezuelan woman] tried to get an Uber and as her kids got into the car speaking Spanish, the driver kicked them out.” Further to this, people who appeared to be waiting in public spaces were often subject to discrimination and “othering” and were viewed differently to those in formal shelters. As a local resident suggested: “People who live in the shelters are the ones who want to follow the rules” (December 2019). This demonstrates that those occupying public spaces are viewed as “rule breakers,” feeding into the narrative that migrants pose a threat to security and society and must be managed.

Many Venezuelan migrants could be identified by observing their daytime movements throughout the city. As I noted:

I take a taxi to the outer edges of the city . . . I see groups of families out the front of closed shops, sitting and laying on a row of mattresses, and I also see groups of men perched under the shade of trees. (Author reflections from fieldnotes, January 2020)

This observation illustrates how migrant mobility was most visible with their occupation and appropriation of public sites that were not designed for “rest.” As one foreign aid worker from the United States observed: “They roam the streets during the day to find shade” (November 2019). This visibility of migrant mobility can be likened to the experiences of homeless populations (Bourlessas 2018) and stems from a shared experience of being visibly mobile during the day. Rather than appearing to move from A to B, they occupied and appropriated public space, typically to look for work, work informally, or find spaces of reprieve from the natural elements.

The mobility of many Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Boa Vista reflected a type of visibility that was distinct from “the public,” who move through those spaces as the designs intended. Drawing on Samira Kawash (1998), Bourlessas (2018: 748) notes that constant mobility is linked to an inevitable visibility that distinguishes marginalized populations, such as the homeless, from the general public. This relationship between mobility and visibility (re)produces an “other.” This is reflective of what Bourlessas calls the “absence of responsibility and rootedness” (2018: 784), whereby the public gaze deems these mobilities inappropriate, as rootedness is considered a key component of “home” (2018: 747). This suggests that mobility was a way that both homeless populations and visible Venezuelan migrants (homeless or not) were othered. This further embedded class-based stigmatization and xenophobia, as a humanitarian worker for AVSI explained: “perhaps more because people are poor, in addition to being immigrants they are poor . . . If they were people who arrived and had the means to support themselves . . . ” (interview, October 2019). As raised in the following excerpt, those Venezuelans who were visible on the streets of Boa Vista must be seen to be productive, to avoid being stigmatized (Bourlessas 2018: 756).

[The local resident] spoke about when migrants/refugees from Haiti came to Boa Vista. She said they didn't have much but they wanted to work, so they searched for whatever jobs they could find to make it happen. Even selling ice creams on the street or something small. And then she compared them to Venezuelans, who she said are very different, in that they don't try to look for work, they just sit and beg for money instead of taking whatever job they can get. [She implied that] they essentially just wait for aid. (Author fieldnotes, December 2019)

When individuals “roamed” through and visibly occupied public spaces, they were seen to be waiting passively. This practice of waiting highlights how mobility is inextricably linked with the conspicuous immobility of visibly occupying public space. While still feminized and considered passive, the waiting that occurred across the urban streetscape was notably distinct from the depoliticized and acceptable act of waiting within formal refugee shelters (Hyndman and Giles 2011). Instead, this visible waiting, whereby Venezuelan migrants were fixed or immobilized in public places (seated, standing still, or lying down) was seen as dangerous or threatening, as it lacked rootedness and was not governed by or confined to institutional spaces. Furthermore, by occupying public spaces in a manner that was not seemingly conducive to work, and particularly when in groups, this visibility prompted “collective stigma while waiting in an uncomfortable form of stillness” (Bourlessas 2018: 758). This feeds into a local perception, repeated in several of my conversations with Boa Vista residents, that Venezuelan migrants were simply “waiting for aid” while draining the welfare system and threatening social norms.

Although Venezuelans occupying public spaces were often perceived as passively waiting, this was not necessarily the case. While I observed men, women, and children sitting and lying down, there were also many selling items on the streets or at traffic lights. This observation not only affirms the difficulties that urban Venezuelan migrants faced in the search for work, shelter, and caregiving responsibilities, but it also challenges the assumption (and accompanying stigma) that Venezuelan migrants do little to enact agency over their livelihoods. From these observations, an interesting phenomenon emerged. Of note were the groups of men sitting collectively under trees, often at street corners. While typically perceived by the public as waiting passively, recent research conducted through the Federal University of Roraima has challenged this perception. Germano Lopes Ângelo (2021) has been investigating these urban spaces since 2018 and has found that they are not arbitrary areas where Venezuelans seek shade. Instead, they are purposefully organized by migrant laborers to wait for work and are referred to as maticas.⁴

Typically located on the sides or corners of roads under the shade of trees, maticas can be thought of as self-managed outdoor offices, where migrants offer their labor based on processes they have organized themselves. The men gather as early as 5:30 a.m. and wait for potential employers to drive by and stop to ask for their work. I observed multiple maticas across Boa Vista, typically seeing men seated on plastic chairs, bricks, or the ground, with text about their work written on cardboard cutouts. Lopes Ângelo (2021: 70) notes that work is organized based on the migrants’ order of arrival to the matica—although there are exceptions, such as being unqualified for a particular job or having clients choose the laborer they want. Despite instances of exploitation, maticas serve as a network with informal rules, illustrative of the sites and practices of resistance to the ongoing vulnerabilities faced by Venezuelan migrants. Processes of self-managing one's labor challenge the stigma attached to the narrative of Venezuelan migrants passively waiting for aid. Instead, maticas—and the act of waiting—represent an active practice involving agency, organization, and self-determination.

Conclusions

This article has explored how the state, through military-humanitarian intervention, seeks to manage the everyday mobilities of Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Boa Vista. In doing so, I have illustrated that despite being framed as a humanitarian response with support from aid organizations, the strive for efficiency and state securitization reveal mechanisms of migration governance in Brazil. By looking at two institutional spaces of care, as well as the urban streetscape more broadly, I have argued that the temporal structures created by military-humanitarian agencies work to govern migrant mobilities and everyday life. This has been regarded as a necessary venture for containing the mobilities of a population who are framed within neoliberal society as threats to national security, both as migrants and as people living without shelter. The daily mobilities of this population are more difficult to manage and contain and their visible waiting in public arenas is viewed as risky, while waiting within institutional spaces is manageable and secure. Thus, the temporalities of the dormitory and WASH site operate as mechanisms of governance and control, as seen with the oscillation between movement and stasis within these spaces and the cyclical expulsion from the dormitory.

This article has also contributed to contemporary discussions regarding the intersection of temporal practices and neoliberal narratives of securitization that view migrants as threats to public systems, security, and social norms. I have highlighted the salience of investigating structured temporalities, waiting, and the relationship with quotidian, mundane mobilities in displacement settings. However, such insights into the spatiotemporal practices of humanitarian intervention deserve further investigation. While Brazil's response proves an important context for exploring such matters, the need to consider the everyday life of urban migrants extends beyond this scenario. Doing so provides an insight into the implications of mobility and migration management, particularly in the context of forced displacement. Further consideration of the relationship between time, aid workers, and urban migrants may reveal the inner workings of state-led responses to emergency and the array of actors involved. It may continue to offer a different way of examining the politics of temporality and the possibility of resistance through everyday practice.