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Unlike other transit countries, Ecuador’s position as a transit country has just begun to be publicly addressed, having been more of a strategic public secret than a topic of public interest. Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2016, this article discusses the dynamics of the (re)configuration of Ecuador as a transit country used by both immigrants and Ecuadorean deportees mainly from the United States to reach other destinations. It argues that this process should be interpreted in light of a series of historical and political elements in tension. The article suggests that the subtle presence of the United States’ externalized border, together with national political inconsistencies, have a repressive as well as a productive effect, which has functioned to produce a systemic form of selective control of transit mobility.

espanolEl articulo reflexiona en torno a como la movilidad transnacional, de ninos, ninas y adolescentes, NNA, ha tenido y tiene efectos espaciales en la (re)configuracion del corredor migratorio extendido Region Andina-Centroamerica-Mexico-EUA. Aqui se presenta una revision historica sobre los distintos elementos que dan cuenta de la existencia de dicho corredor como un espacio abstracto que se produce y reproduce a partir de distintas dinamicas de movilidad, poder y desigualdad desplegadas por sujetos, instituciones, Estados, organismos no estatales y redes criminales. Proponemos la migracion de NNA como eje critico para pensar dicho corredor, y posicionamos a las multiples manifestaciones y procesos de ese tipo de migracion como respuesta y resistencia a las dinamicas de violencia y desigualdad que estan en la raiz de la existencia misma del corredor extendido. Asi como experiencias nodales para entender las dinamicas de produccion y (re)produccion del espacio supranacional, estatal/institucional y subjetivo/animico. EnglishThis articles looks how the transnational mobility of children and adolescents impacts the spatial re-configuration of the extended migratory corridor of the Andean Region-Central America-MexicoU.S. We present a historical revision of the emergence of this corridor as an abstract space re-produced as a result of diverse dynamics of mobility, power and inequality deployed by subjects, institutions, states, NGOs and criminal networks. We posit that the migration of children and adolescents is of critical importance for thinking and understaning the existence of the extended corridor. We argue that this type of migration should be conceived of as a form of response and resistance in the face of violence and inequality, as well as a productive force in the production and re-production of a supranational, state/institutional and subjective/emotional spaces.

Este artículo repasa de manera sucinta los debates en los que converge la geografía crítica en las tradiciones latinoamericanas y anglosajonas, así como las principales líneas de discusión en ecología política; geografía feminista; geografía poscolonial y decolonial; y geografía de la movilidad y las migraciones, con el afán de contribuir a delinear una geografía crítica latinoamericana. Además, se indaga en torno a por qué ciertas líneas investigativas han tenido mayor o menor acogida en la región, con énfasis en la importancia de abrir un diálogo transnacional que, con base en investigaciones críticas locales, retroalimente, cuestione, proponga nuevas vías en la producción de conocimiento geográfico desde, en y sobre la región y, en línea con la teoría crítica, se comprometa con las luchas políticas y territoriales en América Latina.

Based on ethnographic research in the Ecuadorian Highlands, this article puts the mobility, migration, and smuggling practices of Ecuador’s indigenous people in historical and contemporary context. The people of Ecuador’s Southern Highlands have been on the move for generations, and migration is deeply embedded in the social and cultural landscape. In the rural communities of Cañar, indigenous coyotes are more than facilitators of migration: they are community members operating amid broader structural constraints, which have led to the emergence of specific trends in the facilitation of irregularized migration, yet they are expected to adhere to communal principles of reciprocity and trust. We place indigenous migrant narratives of mobility and identity at the center of our analysis of human smuggling, articulating a counternarrative to that of criminalization prevalent in transnational debates of irregularized migration, national security, and border control.