Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador: Confronting symbolic criminalization through space
In 2018, the Ecuadorian government was faced with a massive influx of Venezuelans fleeing the humanitarian and political crisis in their country. In this article, we examine the immigration policy deployed between 2018 and 2019 by the Ecuadorian government to regulate these arrivals. To do so, we develop a previously underdeveloped theoretical-analytical framework by mobilizing the Foucauldian critical policy studies perspective via the use of the Foucauldian concept of problematization. We then relate this to the social production of space within the framework of critical geography. Through the analysis of public policy documents, we posit that the Ecuadorian government symbolically criminalized the Venezuelan population by problematizing it as dangerous and potentially criminal. In contrast, interviews with Venezuelan immigrants show that the migrant population responds to and resists this problematization by employing socio-spatial strategies. Thus, this analysis seeks to contribute to the rare studies on the criminology of mobility in the global South.