The commonplace period of expulsions: Frameworks for Warao migrations during the COVID-19 pandemic in Natal, RN, and João Pessoa, PB

Abstract

In this article we describe and discuss several frameworks through which Warao Indigenous migrations were understood and managed in two cities in the Northeast region of Brazil: Natal (RN) and João Pessoa (PB) during the most restrictive period of the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that their transits do not begin with the recent ‘Venezuelan crisis’ and do not end with the promised reception in Brazil’s refugee policies, rather they are another stage in a long cycle of expulsions. We also suggest that these expulsions are not the most evident forms of the brutal violence that forcibly disconnects populations from their territories, but rather a banal, daily exercise that slowly, and sustained in time, enables the invisibility of multiple violences that denies these groups a place for themselves in the world. Examining the parallels between the two municipalities, we underline both shared frameworks and practices, and the significant differences in the development of public policies.