AUTHOR=Merlín-Escorza Cesar E. , Schapendonk Joris , Davids Tine 

TITLE=Sheltering difference: (un)doing the migrant/volunteer divide through sheltering practices in Mexico and the Netherlands

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sociology

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1084429

DOI=10.3389/fsoc.2023.1084429

ISSN=2297-7775

ABSTRACT=While acknowledging the important role of shelter organizations in protecting migrant rights, recent debates point to the thin line between care and control practices within shelters. This paper seeks to deepen this observation by approaching shelters as spaces defined by a constant inward/outward mobility of people looking for, and looking to, shelter. From this starting point, we use the de-migranticization framework (Dahinden 2016) to understand and question the normalization of difference that divides migrant people (being reproduced as the typical guest) from international volunteers (being reproduced as the typical host) through sheltering practices in two rather different geopolitical contexts (Mexico and the Netherlands). We use our ethnographic insights to not only illustrate how difference is reproduced but also to analyze the practices that seek to transgress and undo these divides. We argue that highlighting the conviviality and interconnectedness between these differentiated actors in the broader context of cross-border mobility is of vital importance to question and overcome the coloniality of contemporary border regimes.