Non-Sheltering as Governance: Migrant Shelters and the Politics of Absence in the Darién

Abstract (English)

While migrant shelters in transit places throughout the Americas have been widely studied in recent years, particularly those run by Catholic organizations in Mexico (Angulo Pasel 2020; Merlin Escorza 2020), less attention has been paid to the implications of the absence of shelter in other parts of the Americas. This paper explores the Darién borderland between Colombia and Panama, focusing on how the lack or presence of migrant shelters shapes mobility and (in)mobiltiy, surveillance, and control in zones of transit.
Based on two ethnographic fieldwork visits in Necoclí, Acandí, and Capurganá, I analyze how the absence of a shelter in Necoclí—a key transit town before entering the Darién jungle—generates tensions between migrants, local residents, and municipal authorities. These tensions largely arise because migrants engage in sheltering in public spaces where they are able to settle—such as the beach, streets, and abandoned buildings, among others. I focus on a political event in which the mayor publicly proposed the construction of a migrant shelter, only to be met with vocal contestation from migrants themselves. Their reactions reveal the complex meanings and stakes that the figure of the "shelter" holds in transit spaces, and poses the question: Is shelter a policy aimed at the well-being of migrants or locals?
I further examine the makeshift shelters located inside the Darién, in the towns of Acandí and Capurganá, which—rather than offering safety and care—function as sites of immobility, surveillance, and, in some cases, extortion. These shelters, operated by municipal and paramilitary actors, are often highly controlled environments where migrants are only allowed to leave at specific times, and some are not permitted to leave at all. Additionally, some migrants have reported being held in these shelters for weeks while smugglers extorted them to obtain the necessary fees to cross the jungle. This raises critical questions about whom these shelters are truly meant to serve: Are they spaces of refuge for migrants, instruments of control for local authorities, or tools of governance designed to regulate movement?
This paper contributes to ongoing debates on migration infrastructure by analyzing shelters not simply as humanitarian responses, but as contested political spaces that mediate relationships between mobility, control, and care. Through the lens of sheltering and non-sheltering, I interrogate the shifting role of local governance, the agency of migrants in transit, and the broader processes that render certain landscapes as “corridors” of migration.