COVID-19 AND (IM)MOBILITY IN THE AMERICAS

This is an (un)finished project – therefore under construction– that collectively reflects on (in)mobility and control in the Americas during the pandemic. We sought to map three main themes: 1- state measures; 2- risk situations the migrant population currently face, particularly internally displaced persons, deportees, detainees, asylum seekers, refugees, irregularized migrants, whether they are adults or children or adolescents; and, 3- the social and collective responses in each of the national spaces. By invoking "mapping," we are not by any means intending to produce a fixed map of the continent, or geo-referenced information. In the context of this project, mapping has different meanings. On the one hand, our task has involved gathering press information, systematizing it, and creating a public digital archive about the tension between (in)mobility and control in the vast majority of countries on the continent during the initial moment of the pandemic. On the other hand, inspired by critical cartography, mapping has here implied “deconstructing the map” (Harley, 1989) of the Americas,  in an effort “to read between the lines of the map –in the margins of the text – and through its trope to discover the silences and contradictions that challenge the apparent honesty of image” (1989:3). Mapping has signify brought to light the hidden spaces or conflicts that rests upon (in)mobility and control during the pandemic which deliberately remain outside of a traditional map and thus often outside of public discussion.