The ‘problem’ of indigenous refugees and migrants and its ‘solutions’: forms of categorization and intervention over indigenous peoples in transit from Venezuela to Brazil

Abstract

The paper proposes an analysis of documents from UNHCR and IOM regarding indigenous refugees and migrants originating from Venezuela to Brazil based on two fundamental questions: what is the ‘problem’ of indigenous refugees and migrants represented to be? What assumptions and silences underlie these forms of representation? A theoretical framework based on post-structuralist discourse studies in IR is employed to answer the questions. Methodologically, the "WPR - what's the problem represented to be? - approach" is mobilized. Hence, three forms of problem/solution representation are identified: (1) the 'problem' of vulnerability and the 'solution' of legal categorization and state accountability; (2) the 'problem' of disorderly displacement and the 'solution' of temporary sheltering; and (3) an eminently urban 'problem' with a 'solution' in capacity-building for labor market insertion. It is argued, then, that these representations reproduce assumptions and silences inherent in tutelary, assimilationist, and colonial rationales.