Border Control (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina) and Local Inventiveness in Times of COVID-19

Abstract

Local level effects of closing borders between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in order to confront COVID-19 disarticulated modes of existence of border dwellers, generating local protests for reopening, creating “sanitary refugees”, deepening the trends of biotechnological controls and sophisticating smuggling. Data for this essay was obtained from local online newspapers and analyzed with help of anthropological and geographical experiences at the border, concentrating on the description of border life and on its changes due to the sudden closure. The essay shows that the complex control structures at these borders gained a centrality whose effects were, besides stifling the pandemic, dismantling and rearticulating border practices, evidently in favor of more control. A disregard of cross-border integration, circulation and communication demonstrates the underlying reification of borders between these three national states.