Caitlyn Yates

CAITLYN YATES, then a graduate student at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, was granted funding in April 2022 to aid research on “Migrantship: Reclaiming Migrant Identity while Navigating Illegalization, Otherness, and Transit through the Americas,” supervised by Dr. Shaylih Muehlmann. This dissertation relied on 12 months of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork split between migrant camps in Panama’s Darien Gap and Tijuana, Mexico. The project focuses in particular on the experiences of migrants from the African and Asian continents moving along Latin American migration pathways. Data collection included participant observation and semi-structured interviews in migrant camps, NGOs, places of worship, and restaurants frequented by so-called multi-continental travelers. Interviews were conducted with both those actively migrating as well as officials interacting with migrants in both Panama and Mexico. In doing so, the project examines how migrants from African and Asian countries forge solidary, access information, and navigate particular criminalized and exclusionary tactics while on the move. This fieldwork found that multi-continental migrants’ travel companions and access to information along migration pathways change over time and space. Moreover, it finds that travelers experience enforcement tactics by countries through more overt forms of criminalization than Latin American migrants despite being at an extremely limited risk of deportation. Ultimately, the journeys of individuals chronicled in this dissertation expand our understanding of what it means to be an illegalized migrant in Latin America.