Migrants as subject-citizens: Identity affirmation and domestic concealment among Venezuelans living in Santiago, Chile

Abstract

Over the past decade, Chile has become an important destination for Latin American and Caribbean migrants. In 2022, more than 8% of the population residing in the country were of foreign origin. Since 2018, Venezuelans have been the largest immigrant group, making up 30% of all international migrants living in Chile. This article explores how Venezuelan migrants become citizen-subjects through their residential practices, that is, through actions that symbolically construct their inhabited spaces (neighborhood and housing). Understanding citizenship as a process that implies the ethical formation of the self as a construction of new forms of belonging and political membership, we show how the daily life of these migrants is traversed by tensions surrounding their identity: while in public space they openly affirm their identity as diasporic Venezuelans, in the domestic sphere they hide said identity to accommodate an ideal of citizenship inspired by notions of civility, compliance, and moderation.