“Son buenos para imponer sus leyes acá”: Aymara experiences and negotiations to recent migration and securitization dynamics in the Chilean border communities of Colchane and Pisiga Carpa

Based on situated ethnographic fieldwork and thirteen participant interviews, this research paper addresses how Aymara border residents of Colchane and Pisiga Carpa, in constant interaction with migrants and other relevant actors, experience and respond to increased migration flows and securitization dynamics in their communities. This paper reveals a contradiction: while Aymara identities and traditional mobilities do not ascribe to the fixity and rootedness of nation-state borders, enhanced border securitization leads border residents to dissociate with migrants and increasingly use fears to assert their belonging to the nation-state and differentiate themselves from the figure of the ‘dangerous’ other. This not only continues to disregard humanitarian concerns of migrants, but it also perpetuates vulnerabilities and insecurities for ‘non-migrants’ residing in the borderlands and throughout Chile.