The Production of Mobilities in the Peruvian-Chilean Space during the Closure of Borders by COVID-19: A Reading from Everyday Objects; [A produção de mobilidades no espaço peruano-chileno durante o fechamento da fronteira pela COVID-19: uma leitura a partir de objetos cotidianos]

Palacios R.J.; Guardia M.C.D.; Ladino M.T.; Del Rosario Marceliano Chaparro M. · Geopolitica(s) (2024) · DOI: 10.5209/geop.89048

Resumen

This article analyzes the situation of border mobility in the Peruvian-Chilean territory in the context of border closures due to COVID-19. Despite the official closing, popular understanding was that the border never was fully closed and that trucks, capital, commodities, grocery products, among other things, continued to make it across the border. Hence, to analyze the production of border mobility in the context of COVID-19, we suggest a more complex approach to the concept of mobility itself, as well as the adoption of alternative empirical approaches. In this piece the mobility turn and object tracking approaches are adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eighty-six formal and informal economic actors on the Tacna border, from which we selected border economic actors from the health and food sectors. Among the main findings, the analytical possibilities of the mobility turn to study border mobility are corroborated, as well as the presence of the border-device as an element that engages in the production of mobilities beyond being considered only as a device that crosses between an origin and a destination.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Privada de Tacna