ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting the systems of trust/distrust prevalent in the international migration corridor of Central America, Mexico and the United States. The authors start from the idea that social and community arrangements historically constituted to face situations of risk have been transformed by the health crisis. How are the criteria of trust/distrust (re)defined in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? The chapter focuses on the trust/distrust dialectic as a process and on how it evolved during the pandemic period. After outlining the pre-pandemic status quo, the authors focus on the times and places where relationships have been transformed and on how pre-existing selection and containment policies have become entangled with the effects of the pandemic. The authors make use of fieldwork materials and previous research experiences, including online and physical participant observation in shelters, as well as analysis of government and civil society reports or media coverage. They argue that the period of crisis contributes to the symbolic construction of figures of danger, which are both institutional constructions and social representations of people on the move. These figures are based on configurations that range from the representation of the migrant’s body to geopolitical considerations and the rhetoric of “crisis” as an additional argument for restrictive measures toward migrants. All these factors contribute to making the production of trusting relationships more difficult and uncertain than ever.
