Ulla Berg

This project examines the detention and deportation of South American migrants from the United States, with a focus on the largely understudied migrant populations from Ecuador and Peru. In contrast to studies of deportation that focuses mostly on the period of detention and the return itself, this project examines deportation as a set of social practices occurring over time and as a transnational social system which begins long before the migrant is apprehended (indeed, even long before the person decides to emigrate from their country of citizenship) and which continue long after an individual is removed from the US and returned to their country of citizenship, because of the painful sense of loss and the often difficult process of readjustment. By examining ethnographically the experiences and long-term effects of the current detention and deportation regime on indigenous and marginalized communities in the global south mostly affected by this regime, this project expands the scope of anthropological studies of immigrant detention and deportation to consider the role of multiple actors and infrastructures in both ‘sending’ and ‘receiving’ locations.