Between Hope and Uncertainty. Attitudes Toward Trajectories, Authorities, International Protection Protocols, and (In)Security among Central American Refugee-Seekers in Mexico

Abstract

Central Americans who seek refugee status in Mexico live in a state of (in)security during and after the process is over. They expect to be granted protection, yet the context in which they look for refugeehood is uncertain. Their lives swing back and forth between hope and incertitude. Interviews with Salvadorian, Honduran, and Guatemalan refugee seekers in Tapachula, Chiapas, and Tenosique, Tabasco reveal attitudes indicative of such a state of fluctuation. On the one hand, the possibility of attaining a refugee status raises hopes among claimants. On the other hand, Mexico’s high rejection rates, the long-drawn-out time the process involves, and the unfavorable conditions people face during the period they wait for an answer- including the difficulty of finding employment-, discourage refugee seekers. Analysis of interview data shows that under the aforementioned circumstances the ability to react, i.e. to exert agency, is limited, yet not altogether suppressed. Some refugee applicants turn to an «apathetic» type of agency, an instrumental one, while others appeal to an anti-establishment narrative to endure their precarious and adverse circumstances.