Shaping the borderlands: local histories, migration (mis)management and indigenous everyday politics at the Chile−Bolivia border

Contributing to a better understanding of changing borderlands at a time when migration is increasingly irregularised, this article focuses on local histories of (interrupted) cross-border mobility that inform responses to migration (mis)management. Based on qualitative methods, it addresses how an Aymara community residing in the Chile-Bolivia borderland experiences and responds to increased border control and securitisation dynamics, highlighting different ways of living, negotiating, and crossing the border. We argue that this shift away from a predominant focus on ‘irregular’ migration offers a holistic approach to understanding how both ‘migrants’ and ‘non-migrants’ co-exist in and transform borderlands. The notion of everyday politics is used as an analytical tool to identify and understand the seemingly mundane and contradicting responses of Aymara, documenting a shift from initial solidarity with migrants to everyday support for securitisation of migration. This reveals a contradiction: while Aymara identity and traditional mobilities do not ascribe to the fixity of national borders, they increasingly differentiate their indigenous and national belonging against Venezuelan migrants, reinforcing a national security discourse. While serving as a temporary solution to protect their own cross-border mobility, it perpetuates a logic that reproduces nation-state interests, potentially making future indigenous lives, livelihoods, and mobilities less secure.