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'– ''The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America 'by Noelle K. Brigden. Cornell University Press, 2018. '– ''Contraband Corridor: Making a Living at the Mexico-Guatemala Border', by Rebecca B. Galemba. Stanford University Press, 2018. '– Lives in Transit: Violence and Intimacy on the Migrant Journey', by Wendy A. Vogt. University of California Press, 2018.

Abstract Starting from the idea that border externalization – understood as the spatial and institutional stretching of borders – is enmeshed with the highly contextual humanitarian and securitarian dynamics of migrant trajectories, this article addresses the reach of border externalization tentacles in Costa Rica. Although Costa Rica does not formally engage in border externalization agreements, it is located in a region characterized by transit migration and transnational securitization pressures. Moreover, externalization efforts across the Atlantic have contributed to a relatively new presence of so-called extra-continental migrants. Given these circumstances, we aim to interrogate the ways in which border externalization plays a role in Costa Rica’s discourses, policies and practices of migration management. We do so by analysing a migrant reception centre in the northern Costa Rica border region, and by focusing on African transit migration. Our analysis is based on exploratory field research at the centre as well as on long-term migration research in Central America. Building on these empirical explorations and the theoretical notions of mobility regimes, transit and arterial borders, the article finds that Costa Rica’s identity as a ‘humanitarian transit country’ – as enacted in the migrant reception centre – both reproduces and challenges border externalization. While moving towards increased securitization of migration and an internalization of its border, Costa Rica also distinguishes itself from neighbouring countries by emphasizing the care it extends to African migrants, in practice enabling these migrants to move further north. Based on these findings, the article argues for a deeper appreciation of the role of local-regional histories, perceptions, rivalries, linkages and strategies of migration management. This allows for a better grip of the scope and shape of border externalization across a diversity of migration landscapes.

Resumen Este artículo introductorio al dossier temático traza los conocimientos y estudios existentes sobre la actual migración africana subsahariana hacia y por América Latina, y propone una perspectiva del haciendo-lugar para su análisis. Tal enfoque analítico permite incluir y vincular las experiencias y prácticas de las personas migrantes con una mirada más estructural que tiene en cuenta regímenes de movilidad y la industria de la migración. Más allá de una victimización o esencialización de las personas migrantes africanas, así se puede llegar a una mejor comprensión de sus compromisos de corta o larga duración con los lugares en los cuales habitan o que atraviesan en sus trayectorias; compromisos que afectan y se desarrollan tanto a un nivel material como social y emocional.