Transit Fetishism

Carina Trabalón

doi:10.22151/politikon.6210

Authors

Carina Trabalón Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.6210

Keywords:

transit migration, geopolitics, border externalisation, migration governance, Americas

Abstract

TRANSIT FETISHISM: A critical concept that exposes the reification of “transit migration” as a mechanism of legitimation within migration governance. By foregrounding the migrant as an individual subject who “chooses transit,” fetishism renders invisible the (geo)political, corporate, moral, and financial architectures that illegalise migratory journeys in border regimes of the Americas. Taking “south-north” migrations as an example, the category highlights the devices of guilt and punishment that hold migrants responsible for the precariousness they experience on the move. The “subjective” dimension of migration emerges only as a neoliberal strategic necessity and has nothing to do with its autonomous character. Depoliticising migration by displacing structural responsibility onto individual “choice,” these devices contribute to naturalising the language and practice of border externalisation, hierarchisation of (im)mobility, and, in general, capitalist power relations that deny freedom of movement.

FETICHISMO DEL TRÁNSITO: Un concepto crítico que expone la reificación de la “migración de tránsito” como mecanismo de legitimación de la gobernanza migratoria. Al destacar al migrante como un sujeto individual que “elige el tránsito”, el fetichismo invisibiliza las arquitecturas (geo)políticas, corporativas, morales y financieras que ilegalizan los viajes migratorios en los regímenes fronterizos de las Américas. Al tomar como ejemplo las migraciones “sur-norte,” la categoría resalta los dispositivos de culpa y castigo que responsabilizan a las propias personas de la precariedad que experimentan por ponerse en movimiento. La dimensión “subjetiva” de la migración sólo emerge como necesidad estratégica neoliberal y nada tiene que ver con su carácter autónomo. Al despolitizar la migración, estos dispositivos contribuyen a naturalizar el lenguaje y la práctica de la externalización fronteriza, de la jerarquización de la (in)movilidad y, en general, de las relaciones de poder capitalistas que niegan la libertad de movimiento.

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