Convenors:
Fernando Castro, University of Tarapacá, Arica, Chile, fycaguilera@gmail.com
Henrik Lindskoug, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Forenses, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Instituto de Antropología de Córdoba-CONICET, Argentina, henrikblindskoug@gmail.com
Dante Angelo, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile, dangeloz@gmail.com
Gabriella Soto, Assistant Teaching Professor, Arizona State University, USA, gasoto@asu.edu
This session aims to bring together archaeological research on contemporary migration and its multiple impacts on societies. Although mobility has been recognised as a constant in human history, studies of this phenomenon in modern and contemporary times have been predominantly addressed as “a crisis” in Europe and North America and mainly discussed and theorised as almost a unilineal movement from the Global South to Europe and the US. This hegemonic approach has rendered invisible other forms of migratory experiences outside the global North-South axis, as well as the importance to understand the motivations (forced or voluntary) underlying the decision to leave certain places and territories for others. In this way, archaeologies of contemporary migrations between and within different regions of the Global South are practically non-existent, which underlines the urgency of addressing it from an integrative perspective that transcends the artificial articulations and divisions between centres and peripheries. From a material perspective, human mobility is generally understood as a complex phenomenon that involves affects, sensibilities, materials and materialities, configuring and reconfiguring this process. We seek to open a space for archaeological research that explores the contextual variability of global forced migration. Along these lines, we invite potential contributors to reflect and discuss issues such as heritage, corporality, landscape, border security regimes, materials in transit and other related dimensions. The objective of this session will be to foster new theoretical-methodological perspectives that allow us to understand the complexity of the phenomenon in a comprehensive manner and from situated perspectives. Therefore, this session hopes to contribute not only to the archaeological understanding of the phenomenon of forced mobility, but also seeks to engage with contemporary, and sometimes tremendously abstract debates about the social, cultural, economic, political and ethical implications at a global level.
Papers:
Socio-archaeology of Migrants’ Borderisation in South America
Paola Díaz, Dept of Anthropology, University of Tarapacá, Chile
Fernando Castro Aguilera, Dept of Anthropology, University of Tarapacá, Chile
Jorge Lagos, Dept of Anthropology, University of Tarapacá, Chile
Starting from a necessarily local and specific case—the eviction and dispossession, in 2024, of 147 migrant households in northern Chile—this paper analyses the internal borderisation that these people and their things experience. On the one hand, they endure the violence of a migration and border regime shaped by capitalist globalisation, which inherently creates ‘disposable’ populations and material waste. On the other hand, these individuals and groups develop ‘forms of life in dispossession’: practices of individual and collective agency through which they construct shelters (houses) from discarded materials and build homes with family, friends, and neighbours within newly imposed urban borders. From an interdisciplinary perspective—combining critical migration studies and critical border studies—we conduct a socio-archaeological analysis of the illegalised squatting in Cerro Chuño (2024–2025), located in the city of Arica, in northern Chile.
Absence as Evidence: Archaeology, Migration and Answers
Jose P. Baraybar, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Regional delegation for Mexico and Central America
This presentation addresses the role of archaeology in the so-called migratory ‘phenomenon’ and more specifically in the case of missing migrants, understanding that the qualification of ‘phenomenon’ is proportional to the otherness with which migrants are perceived. Archaeology, a scientific discipline based on materiality to explain the phenomena it studies, when applied to the study of disappearance in migration, is it capable of overcoming its discursive nature to become a tool that results in concrete results, how to transcend then to the explanation of the dynamics of the facts that satisfy the administration of justice or history in general and can, for example, provide answers to the families searching for their loved ones?
Considering that disappearance, euphemistically, is the ‘absence of’ a being in its materiality, I would like to use the example of the migratory routes to Europe and the discovery of an ‘extermination centre’ in Mexico, to draw parallels and explore whether the materiality of the object of study (the body, material traces such as clothing or other belongings) or its absence, is enough to, through archaeology, approach the families’ need to know what happened to their loved ones.
Conceptualising Heritage on the Move
Gabriella Soto, Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University
This paper proposes a diasporic conception of heritage on the US-Mexico border to comprehend the material heritage of irregular migration in the present—a view that applies to this north-south border, but also has a global application I hope to explore in this session. Within an evolving project of migration archaeology in and of the present, there is both an urgent application for an archaeological toolkit to understand clandestine processes and a corresponding need for archaeologists to move beyond traditional heritage framings to present their findings to the public. If the goal of contemporary archaeology is to make the familiar unfamiliar, we must defamiliarise narratives that conceive of statelessness as primarily a problem to be solved—even as those who perpetuate those narratives may seek to advocate for migrant rights. In conceptualizing a heritage on the move, this paper pairs a series of border-based case studies of evolving heritage sites and objects connected with undocumented migration and border securitization with theories of autonomous migration—beginning with Hannah Arendt’s conception of the stateless as ‘vanguards of their people’, and ending with utopic vision of Aztlán as conceived during the US Chicano Movement.
Reconfiguring Identity and Fighting for a Political Space: The Role of Hispanic Women in South Australia
Lilian Briceño, Archaeology, Flinders University, Australia
Patricia Ríos, Hispanic Women’s Association of South Australia, Australia
Candy Paredes, independent researcher
The Hispanic Women’s Association of South Australia (HWASA) has emerged as a vital organisation dedicated to empowering and supporting women (and their families) from Hispanic backgrounds. Through a range of projects and programs, HWASA fosters personal, social, and professional development, enabling women to reach their full potential while preserving their cultural heritage. Comprising women from diverse South and Central American countries, the association plays a crucial role in strengthening community connections and redefining the role of Hispanic women within their families and broader society.
This presentation explores how Latin American women are reconstructing their identities and relationships in South Australia. It examines the impact of migration and displacement on family structures, cultural transmission, and community building. Using ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, this presentation delves into the ways Hispanic women navigate their roles within the family unit while fostering collective empowerment. Findings highlight the importance of cultural heritage, emotional connections, and identity in shaping the Hispanic family experience in South Australia. Furthermore, this presentation highlights how grassroots women’s movements create spaces for political and social engagement, redefining conventional power dynamics in their new home.