Logistical lives, humanitarian borders: managing populations in South-South circulations

Abstract: The paper investigates the growing connection between logistical thinking and humanitarian responses in current strategies of managing population movements and organizing humanitarian space, particularly in the context of South-South circulations. It analyses the case of Brazil, specifically its response to the current influx of Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers, arguing that the militarization of humanitarian assistance has infused the protection efforts with a logistical mindset and a specific spatial orientation of containment/movement. It argues that i) the experiences of Venezuelans have been subsumed into a logistical framework, where control over movement in a spatially structured manner has taken precedence over concerns regarding protection and that ii) protection has been subsumed into migratory regularisation and flexible yet standardised sets of procedures, organised around administrative and strategic pipelines and infrastructures. It reviews contributions on the connection between the historical evolution of logistics as a science of managing circulations and how it has traveled, in this particular context, to the control of peoples and their movement. The paper is based on research conducted between 2018/2021 on lives in displacement and the situation of Venezuelans in Brazil, including fieldwork, qualitative interviews and surveys conducted with agencies and people of Venezuelan origin living in Brazil.

Speaker Bio: Carolina Moulin is currently Professor at the Center for Regional Planning and Development (CEDEPLAR), Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. Currently, she holds the Chair on Refugee Studies, a partnership between UFMG and UNHCR, and coordinates the Center of Latin American Studies at UFMG.  She holds a PhD in Political Science from McMaster University, Canada. She is associate editor of Review of International Studies since 2020. She works on refugee and migration issues, particularly in South America, and teach on security, IR theory and global migrations.