Desired f ormality Labor migration, black markets, and the state in Chile - Berghahn Journals
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Desired formality
Labor migration, black markets, and the state in Chile
Sofía Ugarte
Abstract: Formal work is essential to gain legal residence in Chile and the reason
why Latin American and Caribbean migrants purchase fake contracts on the black
market. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with migrant Haitian women apply-
ing for work visas in Santiago, this article explores the effects of desired formality
and its promises of a good life on contemporary statehood in Chile. The analysis
shows how Haitian women’s efforts to become formal workers transform their ex-
periences as racialized and gendered migrants in Chile, and impact how state insti-
tutions manage and control migration. Desired formality reveals the paradoxical
character of state policies that help create a racialized and precarious labor force
within its legal frameworks and explain why migrants attach themselves to fragile
good-life projects in new countries.
Keywords: desire, formality, labor migration, Latin America, state
Becoming a formal worker is an essential require- participation among migrants (INE 2018), in
ment to gain legal residence as a labor migrant in large part due to such racialized, linguistic, and
Chile and the main reason why Haitians—and gendered biases that position them as one of the
many Latin American migrants—purchase fake most devalued and disposable workers in the
work contracts on the black market. For Hai- Chilean economy (Ugarte 2020).
tians, finding a job is not easy, and searching for For Haitian women, having a formal job
formal sector jobs in the Chilean labor market with a signed and stamped contract to apply for
to attain legal residence is a deeply racialized a residence visa in Chile comprises the naviga-
and gendered experience with numerous ob- tion of state bureaucracies, intermediaries, and
stacles. Non-discriminatory hiring policies are the workings of a black market of documents,
hardly enforced, allowing employers to turn which contribute to their experiences of under-
away workers because of the color of their skin, employment and labor exploitation. By looking
their accent, and their foreign origin, or hire at the experiences of Haitian women and their
them without following the labor laws that give encounters with Chilean state agents, interme-
migrant workers a limited degree of rights and diaries, and employers in the city of Santiago, I
protection. In Chile today, Haitian women are explore everyday practices through which mi-
the demographic with the lowest rate of labor grants experience the state as a real and en-
Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology (2021): 1–14
© The Authors
doi:10.3167/fcl.2021.0311032 | Sofía Ugarte
during part of their social landscape (Krupa state, labor formality is an index of success in
and Nugent 2015). I examine how the state is the control of immigration and migrant labor’s
produced and reproduced through material accountability in the Chilean economy (cf. Bear
and discursive processes (cf. Goddard 2018; 2014). As an object of desire, formality reconfig-
Navaro-Yashin 2002) of migration management ures migrant-state relations, attaching migrants
and control in the form of bureaucracies, pa- to the state as a discursive reality with material
perwork, state agents, and policy-making. Here, force that fails to keep the promise of being a
I analyze the role of labor migration in trans- “welcoming” institution, economy, and society
forming state institutions and their workings (cf. Mitchell 1999).
on the ground and how migrant-state relations By purchasing fake work contracts, Haitian
produce a gendered and racialized migrant women, and many other migrants, negotiate the
workforce through laws, policies, and bureau- meanings of formality and reveal the ethno-
cratic practices. graphic dissonances between mundane and ma-
The analysis of Haitian women’s experiences terial state practices that welcome labor migrants
seeking legal residence through labor formality through the configuration of parallel bureau-
in Chile shows how the combination of a dereg- cracies. The negotiations of formality point to
ulated labor market with migration policies that the ways states’ abstraction as political entities
rest upon labor formality results in the emer- with sovereign power (Abrams 1988; Mitchell
gence of parallel bureaucracies, the collapse of 1999; cf. Sharma and Gupta 2006) become part
state institutions in charge of migration control, of people’s daily and intimate lives (Aretxaga
and the reinforcement of labor precarity for a 2003). Interpreted by some scholars as contra-
wave of new migrants from Latin America and dictory arrangements of rules, processes and
the Caribbean. Haitian women’s efforts to be- practices (Brown 1995; Trouillot 2001), the state
come lawful migrants via a black market of fake and its dissonances are profoundly significant
documents transform not only their experiences in migrant lives, mapping the logic and ratio-
as labor migrants in Chile but also the workings nales that guide migrant subjectivities vis-à-vis
of state institutions and bureaucracies in charge the reality of institutions and the relationships
of migration management and control. Here, of power that constitute them. Moreover, the
formal labor can be understood as an object of analysis of migrant encounters with state insti-
desire. I follow Lauren Berlant’s proposal of an tutions, intermediaries, and even abusive em-
object of desire as “a cluster of promises we want ployers also exposes the shortcomings of dis-
someone or something to make possible for us” tinguishing state from non-state (Das and Poole
(Berlant 2011: 23). Objects of desire explain 2004; Mitchell 1999), the legal and illegal (De
why and how people attach to good-life aspi- Genova 2005; Thomas and Galemba 2013), the
rations and fantasies that are unstable, fragile, formal and informal (Gandolfo 2013; Lazar
and even work against the prosperity of individ- 2012), and the need to show how these realms
ual and collective projects (Berlant 2011). For of action articulate with each other theoretically
Haitian women, the desire to become formal and ethnographically (Bear 2011: 47).
workers impacts how they materialize their as- I base my analysis on 18 months of ethno-
pirations for a good life in a new country, en- graphic fieldwork between 2016 and 2018 with
visage their futures as migrants and workers, young Haitian women living and working in
and configure relationships of recognition and Santiago as they navigate intricate migrant bu-
disregard with the Chilean state. In the eyes of reaucracies and encounter abusive employers
Haitian women, labor formality brings with it and brokers in the black market. At the time,
the promise of attaining a successful migration the migrant population increased dramatically,
project by enhancing their work opportunities state institutions revealed their limited capac-
as racialized and gendered migrants. For the ity to manage migration flows following legalDesired formality | 3
frameworks and bureaucratic rationales, and The ethnographic salience of desired formal-
more than 90 percent of Haitians currently in ity evidences the gendered and racialized effects
Chile arrived in the country.1 After the 2010 of states’ legal-bureaucratic integrations and ex-
earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, Chile clusions on migrant livelihoods, as diverse eth-
gradually became an attractive destination for nographies have shown (Coutin 2000; Fikes
Haitians, in part because of its role in the UN 2009; Gutierrez Garza 2018; Tuckett 2018; Wil-
Peace-keeping Mission (MINUSTAH) operat- len 2019). The focus on how migrants’ desires
ing in Haitian territory since 2004 (Audebert transform state institutions on the ground en-
2017). Since 2016, the growing number of Hai- ables me to consider from a different perspec-
tians sparked new forms of discrimination, as tive how migrant-state relations are integral to
the media and political authorities zeroed in contemporary statehood vis-à-vis transnational
on this group as culpable of the country’s “im- logics of capitalism in the form of bureaucracies
migration crisis,” becoming common targets that fail to manage and control labor migrants’
of structural and everyday forms of racism as lives. Here, desired formality reveals the para-
the largest Afro-descendant and non-Spanish- doxical character of migration policies and their
speaking migrant group in Chilean society. proceduralism—which simultaneously protect
The historical moment of intensified immi- national borders and create a racialized and pre-
gration, its institutional responses, and the in- carious labor force within its legal frameworks
formal networks that surround migrant legality (Calavita 2005; cf. De Genova 2005; Portes
and labor formality constitute a unique oppor- 1978)—and explain why migrants continue to
tunity to understand not only the impact of attach themselves to fragile good-life fantasies,
transnational migration on contemporary state- and the uncertainties of realizing them.
hood but also how state institutions shape the
everyday lives of racialized and gendered labor
migrants in this particular context. I begin this The promise of legality
article illustrating how migration and labor laws
inherited from the military dictatorship and its Chile’s long history of state-sponsored economic
authoritarian-neoliberal rule result in contem- openness and development since the nineteenth
porary forms of migration control through century was reinforced by neoliberal economic
informal and illicit networks and practices, in restructuring imposed by the military dictator-
which Haitian women become involved. I then ship (1973–1990). It was only at the turn of the
examine how Haitian women devise multiple twenty-first century that immigration became a
strategies following bureaucratic procedures matter of political concern, in part due to the
within and parallel to state institutions and, negative net migration rate during the military
thus, fulfill their desires to become recognized rule (Cano et al. 2009) and the sudden immi-
as formal workers and legal residents by the gration boom in recent years. Historically, mi-
Chilean state. I analyze the negotiations be- gration policies have given priority to foreigners
tween a Haitian woman I call Dayana and her who contributed to the national economy as
employer to get a visa through the black market workers and entrepreneurs.2 However, not all
to show how the emergence of a parallel state migrants in Chile are welcomed in the same
bureaucracy contributes to the exploitation of way, and finding an employer who will issue a
migrants. I further describe the efforts of an en- contract so migrants can apply for a work visa
trepreneur I call Brigitte to secure a visa through is more difficult for some. While Europeans are
fake documents and private intermediaries to looked upon with admiration and considered
analyze the articulation of state practices of mi- a racial betterment for Chilean society (Walsh
gration control with the informal economy and 2019), Latin Americans are deemed inferior and
illicit markets. alien, particularly if they have Indigenous and4 | Sofía Ugarte Afro-descendant backgrounds (Mora and Un- ing, and transport (INE 2020; OECD 2018). durraga 2013; Ugarte 2020). Thus, contrary to predictions in labor market The primary category under which most theories, while unemployment in Chile has de- migrants gain legal status in Chile is “worker.” creased, the proportion of informal workers has In the past decade, the relevance of economic remained relatively stable at approximately 30 migration is reflected in the high proportion of percent of the national workforce. migrants issued labor visas and work permits, in It is in this context that migrants seek modes comparison to other categories such as refugees of integrating into the Chilean economy and and students.3 In other words, most migrants’ become legal residents through formal work. legal status depends on their formal inclusion Research has demonstrated that migrants have in the labor market, turning labor formality a higher participation rate in the labor market into an object of desire for many who wish than Chilean nationals, and their presence has to make a life in the country. In recent years, not impacted negatively on Chilean unemploy- there have been a series of work visas in force, ment rates or real wages (Urria Yáñez 2020). In most of them requiring labor formality—in the Santiago, many migrants occupy low-skilled and shape of a written, signed, and legalized work low-paid positions such as trading, food and contract—to prove an ordered integration into domestic service, and construction, which Chil- the country. While the Migration Department ean nationals avoid.6 For Haitian migrants—and processes work visas in Santiago,4 migrants are particularly Haitian women—discrimination issued a renewable work permit that shows they against their skin color, their accent, and their can legally work in the country. Only with a foreign origin make it harder to find a job with work permit, a temporary work visa, and reg- a written contract and receive dignified treat- ular social security payments are they then able ment at work. To improve their chances of being to apply for permanent residence. Until 2018, hired, they need identification documents and migrants could enter the country on a tourist work permits given with a temporary visa. To visa and search for work, but if they wished to overcome hiring barriers in the formal sector stay, they were expected to attain a work visa. and pass bureaucratic stepping-stones to gain For this, they needed a written contract from an legal residence, many migrants purchase fake employer.5 work contracts in private offices and hidden At the same time, the labor market in Chile businesses, a practice considered by state au- has changed radically since neoliberal restruc- thorities to be a “black market.” Between 2016 turing policies in the late 1970s. Together with and 2019, most of these migrants were Haitian.7 economic prosperity and the decline of pov- Obtaining a work contract for the visa ap- erty levels since the 1990s, labor policies have plication, a work permit while it is revised by combined the strengthening of institutions that authorities, and then the temporary work visa enforce regulation to the formal sector with and an ID card are turning points around which an increase in flexibilization, outsourcing, and migrants achieve regular status as workers in the weakening of unions (Sehnbruch 2014). the Chilean economy. Many Haitian women I The latter is accompanied by the absence of met in Santiago during fieldwork purchased a explicit governmental policies to reduce infor- work contract to apply for a temporary work mality (Henríquez 2019), the persistence of in- visa to fulfill their dreams of finding what they formalized employment without social security considered a stable and proper job in Santiago. benefits—mostly in domestic service in private Some of them succeeded, while others had their homes and small businesses of up to 10 work- contracts detected and their visas rejected by ers—and self-employment, that is, people who the Migration Department. From the point of work on their own in activities such as trading, view of state agents, whom I also interviewed construction, personal services, manufactur- for my research, these documents were proof
Desired formality | 5
whereby migration control was believed to be by authorities. Moreover, the submission of fake
attained. In line with migration policies and contracts entailed for many migrants sending
bureaucratic procedures, documents evidence and amending visa applications more than once,
migrants’ compliance with laws ruled by the collapsing a bureaucratic system that was not
state administration and demonstrate their or- ready to receive this volume of applications.
derly incorporation as workers in the country’s The volume of applications was such that each
politico-economic project. bureaucrat in the Migration Department had to
The black market of fake documents oper- review more than one hundred cases per day,
ates as an administration parallel to the state. which materialized as piles of files and papers
Migrants purchase fake work contracts through stacked in governmental offices.8 “The system is
people close to them, such as family and friends, shattered, and with no capacity, it needs more
who provide the information through WhatsApp staff, it needs its processes modernized, even
and Facebook to communicate with counsel- though it detects many fake contracts, they still
ing agencies and fake employers. Alternatively, pass, there’s no organizational capacity,” a state
contracts are arranged through strangers on the agent disclosed in an interview in 2017.
street, outside post offices and the Migration De- The integration of undocumented migrants
partment, and near public notaries. In these set- in the Chilean workforce during an immigra-
tings, all sorts of experts and so-called lawyers tion boom involved new bureaucratic processes
offer services to assist with the visa application and new revenues among those seeking busi-
process, some of which include the purchase of ness opportunities (Bear 2011). The procedures
contracts. While the application is processed, involved in the purchasing of fake contracts
migrants are entitled to work by showing the comprised, as the following sections will show,
corresponding work permit. During this win- bureaucratic practices different from legally
dow of time, those who purchase contracts in recognized state modes of governance. Trapped
the black market can search for jobs; the work in-between institutional constraints and the
permit improves their chances of being hired. pressure to find a job in the formal sector, many
According to state agents working for the Haitian women who wished to secure a work
Migration Department, there has always been a contract sought strategies to attain legal resi-
black market of fake contracts, where documents dence through the workings of the black market
are bought and sold for visa purposes. However, and the numerous intermediaries that offered
it was only in 2016 that they became a bureau- support to apply for visas. The displacement of
cratic problem, and as such, authorities sought migration management onto illicit and informal
to check visa applications more thoroughly and networks meant uncertain visa status for thou-
register the existence of fake contracts in the sands of them. For many, it also meant differ-
system. The increase of immigration resulted ent forms of informalization and exploitation
in a high volume of visa applications. The Mi- in their workplaces while they waited for their
gration Department detected inconsistencies in papers, such as the experience of Dayana.
the contracts when too many migrant workers
were associated with the same employer, rais-
ing doubts about the authenticity of the docu- The promise of stability
ments submitted and the labor relations they
accounted for. The discrepancies identified in Dayana arrived in Santiago in June 2016, hop-
the analysis led authorities to report that the ing to live the Chilean dream. She had recently
labor relation the agreement specified did not finished law school in Haiti and was living with
exist. The state denied the temporary work visa her mother, who worked as a cleaner at a hotel
and filed a rejection order involving a declara- in Port-au-Prince. She was working as a secre-
tion of expulsion, which was seldom enforced tary in a local municipality when she quit and6 | Sofía Ugarte
traveled to Chile in search of a better livelihood ize her aspirations of what migrating to Chile
following a close cousin named Pierre. Upon ar- meant for her.
rival, Dayana rented a small room in an illegal To achieve legal status and labor formality
migrant hostel in a centrally located población, in the eyes of the Chilean state, migrants like
an enclosed space without windows next to Dayana turn to bureaucratic practices which are
her cousin’s apartment, with whom she shared enabled by different intermediaries—official or
a kitchen. After a month in Chile as a tourist, not—that configure specific migrant-state rela-
she began searching for long-term jobs, first tions. Dayana’s application form read that she
as secretary or administrative personnel, and worked in a construction company owned by a
then as a saleswoman in shops in the city center, Peruvian resident. However, she was searching
without immediate success. Many employers for jobs at the time, and the Peruvian man who
required a work permit or a residence visa to signed the contract was not—and was never go-
consider Dayana as a prospective employee. She ing to be—her employer. Her application por-
soon accepted the fact that it would be unlikely trayed a form of life different from what she was
that somebody would hire her without papers, doing in the country. In this regard, the mecha-
even if it was legal to do so, as she could have nisms of migrant control through bureaucratic
then applied for a work permit with their em- processes based on the submission of work con-
ployment contract. “It’s too difficult. I need to tracts failed to account for Dayana’s and many
work to be legal in Chile, but I need to be legal other migrant applicants’ real circumstances in
to find work,” Dayana commented at a time of the country.
frustration when she was looking for a job. After submitting the documents and forms,
Following Pierre’s advice and help, Dayana Dayana went to the Migration Department to re-
bought a contract to submit a visa application quest her work permit while her visa application
and obtain a work permit. The permit would was being checked by government authorities.
allow her to improve her chances of finding a She then visited a clothes distribution company
job and buy time without becoming an illegal in one of Santiago’s busiest commercial districts,
migrant. If she was lucky enough, the contract where she had talked to the manager about the
would pass the revision process and would grant possibility of employment a week before ap-
her a work visa for a year. Dayana purchased a plying for a visa. The manager had offered her
work contract from a Peruvian man she con- a job as a warehouse assistant once she had a
tacted through her cousin who had a small of- work permit. Dayana showed him the permit,
fice near the Migration Department in the city which was a piece of paper with the state’s logo
center. Guided by her cousin, she contacted him and stamp, and a state agent’s signature from the
via WhatsApp and met him to write, sign, and Migration Department. The man accepted her
legalize the contract together. The document as a worker with the permit and told her that he
she paid for fulfilled all the requirements for the would make her a permanent work contract for
visa, had all the legitimate stamps of the notary, the minimum wage once her visa came through.
the identification card of the employer involved, The manager’s conditions to hire Dayana did
and even the legal information of the company not follow the labor code, as he should have
who was hiring Dayana as an employer. With written her a contract with the temporary work
this contract, she submitted a visa application permit she already had. Through this informal
and became a migrant who could legally work arrangement, the manager skipped the oblig-
in the country, inhabiting a space of existence atory social security and health payments that
(cf. Coutin 2003) in which she could dream would account for Dayana’s labor formality in
beyond her unemployed status, her precarious the eyes of the state, saving him from paying her
living arrangements in an illegal hostel, limited 20 percent of the minimum wage. Dayana did
access to healthcare, and inability to material- not know this, and she did not complain or de-Desired formality | 7
mand anything from him. The manager knew tract initially. The instability at work slightly im-
that if Dayana remained ignorant of her rights proved when the manager agreed to write her
as a worker, he would not need to amend this a permanent work contract as a “personal favor”
nor pay fines to the corresponding authorities a month after Dayana gave notice of her visa
in the Ministry of Labor. Negotiating her work rejection. Dayana knew of her boss’s lack of
conditions was not an option for Dayana at the commitment and understood that his claim of
time. Instead, she was relieved she could finally doing her a favor was not genuine. Despite this
work in the country with the promise of having relationship, she felt she could not leave the job
a stable job with a contract very soon. until she had her temporary visa secured, more
However, in the third month that Dayana so now that her permit would be tied to a real
visited the Migration Department to renew her contract with the clothes distribution company
work permit—and in passing, ask information during its processing time.
on the visa she longed for—she found out state Dayana returned to the Migration Depart-
authorities had denied her application for sub- ment many times after she resubmitted her ap-
mitting a fake contract. She had been successful plication to renew her work permit, a creased
in obtaining a work permit and a job, but she document that was wearing out. This continu-
had failed in getting a work visa. When she told ous return involved queuing in the middle of
the manager at work, he replied he could not the night to talk to a state agent for 10 minutes
have an illegal employee in his business, as he the following morning early enough to get to
risked being fined by state institutions if they work on time. This specific trámite, or bureau-
visited the warehouse where she worked. It be- cratic procedure, entailed the continual return
came clear to her how he was taking advantage of migrants whose visa approvals were delayed
of her undocumented status and her desire to for different reasons, one of them being the sub-
become a formal worker in the company, to have mission of a contract deemed fake by authori-
papers and become a regular migrant. Dayana ties. Six months after she sent the last batch of
was frustrated her visa application had failed paperwork, state agents informed her the writ-
because her fake contract had not passed the ten contract she had submitted was not valid be-
test. She also felt deceived by her manager, who cause it did not fulfill an essential requirement:
had refused to put in writing her working con- the minimum legal wage for full-time employ-
ditions. This situation made Dayana feel she ees in the country. Amending the application
could not trust the certainty of her labor status meant renegotiating her working conditions
at the clothes distributor or the promise of sta- with the manager, asking for a raise that would
bility the work permit and this job had meant comply with the labor code, and the risk of be-
for her. ing fired. Even so, she had no other option. Her
Dayana’s manager used her pending legal boss wrote her a new contract for the minimum
status to avoid the formalization of their labor wage, including social security payments, but
relation, counterintuitively, by promising to failed to reach this agreement in practice. The
write her a work contract. This promise made manager was aware of Dayana’s insecure status
Dayana attach herself to a work experience with and sought to profit from her lack of protection.
no permanent future, without any prospect for Dayana did not complain. Becoming a formal
stability or improvement, and contingent on employee at the clothes distributor, and thus a
forces outside of her control. Her visa rejection legal migrant, transformed her into a precarious
exposed Dayana to her manager as an undoc- worker without voice or power to improve her
umented migrant and informal worker, even conditions. For Dayana, obtaining a visa would
though she had been working with a work per- improve her situation as she would have more
mit all along, and the manager had contributed security and rights as a worker, and yet, less
to her “illegality” by failing to write her a con- than a year after Dayana obtained a visa in July8 | Sofía Ugarte
2019—an excruciatingly long bureaucratic pro- The promise of prosperity
cess—the manager fired her, claiming that sales
were low and he could not afford her anymore. Like Dayana, many migrants who buy a contract
The stagnation of migrant life projects crossed in the black market and have their visas denied,
by power relations, people, places, and insti- submit their applications again with new—and
tutions (Gardner 2002) paralyzed Dayana and what they consider to be “more trustworthy”—
many other migrants’ plans to imagine a better documents. Yet, it is not the case for everybody
future in Chile. For Dayana, the experience of that by the time the Migration Department dis-
waiting, the negotiations with her manager, the misses their request, they are working for an
ongoing collection of documents, and the de- employer with a written contract that fulfills
lays in her visa application, foreshadowed more the visa requirements. Some of my interlocu-
uncertainty in her work prospects and in the tors who found themselves in these situations
bureaucratic process in which she was involved considered purchasing a second contract in the
with the Migration Department. Waiting in the black market, devising different strategies with
streets in the middle of the night, the uncom- which to apply for a temporary work visa with-
fortable conversations with the manager, the out being an employed worker in the formal
purchasing of a contract, and the feeling of fear sector. As a result, many Haitian women at the
and anxiety over what would happen when fac- time had their applications rejected for a second
ing a state agent in the Migration Department time. The comparison between Dayana and Bri-
each time she returned to renew her work per- gitte, an informal entrepreneur in search of mi-
mit, transformed her relationship with the state grant legality, reveals the contradictory effects
as a formal worker and a pending-legal migrant. of desired formality in migrant livelihoods and
In Dayana’s words, waiting for a visa meant de- within state forms of migration control, where
laying her life project in Chile, “stuck in a job becoming a formal worker does not automati-
with no stability nor future.” This future was as- cally result in migrant legality, and there is even
sociated with a better-paid job that would allow a chance of becoming a legal migrant while be-
her to live on her own, send remittances to her ing an informal worker and engaging in illegal
mother, and save money to visit her family in practices.
Port-au-Prince. In this sense, the opportunities I met Brigitte at a street market in a resi-
granted by the validity of the work permit were dential neighborhood in the center of Santi-
also imbued with a deep sense of uncertainty, ago, where she sold second-hand clothes on the
of strategizing with the unknown and for many sidewalk. Brigitte also ran a small business of
migrants, of imminent failure. The inability African braids and extensions from her home,
to have certainty about the timeframe within which she advertised on Facebook, and was a
which the whole process would finish revealed part-time domestic worker for a family with two
the contradictory predicament of becoming a kids, where she was paid daily in cash and with-
formal worker through the submission of a fake out a contract. Like Dayana, she came from Port-
work contract. What she had envisaged as the au-Prince, where she had studied informatics
materialization of a desire for formality with but had worked in a local shop her parents ran
the hope of “buying time” for a possible future in her neighborhood. With the help of her fam-
(cf. Han 2011), resulted in an exploitative rela- ily and following the footsteps of a close friend
tion and a precarious present at work (Berlant who had traveled before her, Brigitte moved to
2011), along with a form of migrant legality Chile because it was a safer country with more
distant from the promises she had attached job opportunities. However, when she arrived
herself to while working out how to secure la- in Santiago, she found herself all alone, living
bor formality and succeed in this bureaucratic in a shared house with four other families, but
process. without anyone she knew from back home inDesired formality | 9
Haiti. This experience of loneliness transformed funding and renting a commercial property.
her self-confidence and affected her dreams of a Additionally, if authorities were to inspect her
better life. “I used to be a sexy girl,” she explained, informal business, she felt more protected if she
describing how she gained weight in Chile due had papers that proved she was a legal resident
to a self-diagnosed depression. She wanted to in the country.
take care of her mental health and her body, and Six months after submitting her visa applica-
feel good again, which would come along with tion for the first time with a fake contract, Bri-
the prosperity afforded by a residence permit. gitte visited the Migration Department’s website
Brigitte searched for different jobs to pay for to check the status of her visa. She realized that
her living expenses in Santiago. She searched for her permit had been approved but also that her
advertisements on Chilean websites as a domes- records were being inspected again. This in-
tic worker and as a kitchen assistant in canteens formation alarmed her, making her think that
around the city. However, everywhere she went perhaps her visa would be rejected. Following
for interviews, employers asked for the ID card advice on social media and from Haitian friends
given to people with residence visas, both tem- at the market, she decided to fix this problem
porary and permanent, to hire her as a worker by buying another fake contract, this time from
with a contract. Brigitte experienced a similar a Chilean neighbor who had a mechanic work-
problem to what Dayana faced when trying to shop and had offered to help her. According to
become a legal migrant through formal work, Brigitte, the second contract was better than the
and Brigitte was vocal about fake contracts be- one she had submitted the first time because
ing one solution to this situation, “They [the she was buying it from someone she knew per-
state] don’t give you an identity card without a sonally and who had a real business. Brigitte
contract, and they [employers] don’t give you a was confident that the person who wrote it and
contract without this ID, the fake contract is the signed it was doing it because they were friends
only alternative we have as foreigners.” and was not making a profit, hence the contract
Brigitte’s lack of success in finding a job in would not raise suspicions at the Migration De-
the formal sector and her ability to make ends partment. Brigitte’s desire to prove she was a
meet via different sporadic jobs and commer- formal worker came from her dream of having
cial ventures did not dissipate her dream to eco- her own business and growing as an entrepre-
nomically prosper in Chile, but rather, pushed neur. Through friendships and acquaintances
her to find an alternative strategy to attain for- she was able to devise a way to provide a chain
mality in the eyes of the state. She bought a con- of fake documents that would allow her to have
tract that declared she worked as a janitor for a a residence visa, a national identity card, and a
cleaning service company. At the time she was social insurance number with which she could
selling informally and building the base of her run her own business and become a recognized
hairstyling business, contacting Latin American entrepreneur in the future.
and Caribbean women she met in the market. If Brigitte submitted the new work contract
Brigitte was already working with some success with a series of documents to amend her pre-
in the informal sector, why did she want a work vious application. She wrote a letter explain-
permit and a temporary work visa? Why did she ing she had ceased to work as a janitor for the
want papers that acknowledged she worked in a company with documented proof of it—a fake
regular and stable job? “Because you need docu- labor settlement—and that she was currently
ments for everything,” Brigitte told me in one of working for a new employer for which she at-
our conversations. An official ID card attached tached the new contract that met all the legal
to a formal work contract would give her better requirements. “I know they are fake, but they
opportunities if she were to expand her African can work,” Brigitte commented when I asked
braids business, such as applying for state-led her if all the fake paperwork and extra expenses10 | Sofía Ugarte
were worth the fuss. The new documents Bri- fake formality become vehicles through which
gitte submitted to the Migration Department migrants overcome the stigma of illegality and
worked “as if ” a labor relation existed with her continue to pursue a prosperous future in a new
neighbor in the mechanic workshop. These doc- country.
uments were introduced into the state’s system
through a visa application, effectively produc-
ing a chain of documentation which, for Bri- Conclusion
gitte and many others, resulted in a residence
visa. More than nine months later, Brigitte’s Brigitte’s and Dayana’s experiences becoming le-
temporary work visa came through, giving her gal migrants through the purchase of fake work
an ID card for a year. Despite her new migrant contracts in Chile point to the ethnographic sa-
status and the new job opportunities it could lience of formality as an object of desire. Haitian
open for her, she kept working in sporadic women resort to illegal and informal practices
jobs and consolidated her braiding business parallel to state institutions to fulfil the promises
from home. She used social media to promote of stability and prosperity they wish to pursue in
her services and expanded her customer net- a new country, impacting how they materialize
work from Afro-descendant migrant women to their aspirations for a good life and build their
Chilean nationals via word-of-mouth, offering futures as migrant working women. At the same
braiding and hairstyling, as well as make-up time, when purchasing fake contracts in the
and fashion advice. black market, Brigitte, Dayana, and many other
Brigitte’s documentary practices to become migrants configure equivocal relationships with
a legal migrant consolidate formal work and the Chilean state, which are mediated by poten-
contracts as objects of desire that position Hai- tial employers, brokers, close friends, and even
tian women and many other migrants in am- family. These relationships are infused by un-
biguous relations of interdependence with the certainty and ambiguity because they are based
Migration Department. Brigitte’s experience mi- on documentary practices that work “as if ”
grating to Chile as a black woman who did not formal work relationships exist and on opaque
speak Spanish and who wished to fulfill her bureaucratic procedures that turn the promise
dreams of a better life and a successful hair- of legal recognition into a form of waiting in a
styling business, immersed her in a bureau- precarious present.
cratic system and in relations with the state Lingering between technologies of control
that reinforced the importance of documents and strategies of empowerment, attaining le-
that proved their formality. Here, relationships gality through the façade of formal work chal-
between migrants and the state based on fake lenges processes of legal categorization at the
contracts, real permits, and uncertain legal sta- core of the country’s migration law and labor
tus reveal the incompleteness of migration con- formality as the primary mechanism through
trol via labor formality in which migrants use which the state seeks to manage migrant work-
bureaucratic procedures effectively to achieve ers within its borders. In doing so, the practical
legal status even if fragile. The strategic naviga- effects of becoming formal and lawful through
tion of migrant bureaucracies through opaque what state agents consider informal and illegal
administrative processes, informal networks, reconfigures the discursive and material effects
and a black market makes plausible what is oth- of contemporary statehood in charge of migra-
erwise unattainable and gives Brigitte and other tion control and the everyday experience of the
migrants a sense of hope and a form of em- state as an institutional reality. The experiences
powerment afforded by the same tools through of Haitian women and many other Latin Amer-
which the state seeks to control migration (cf. ican and Caribbean migrants in Chile reveal
Cabot 2012; Tuckett 2018). Here, both real and the centrality of state policies and bureaucraticDesired formality | 11
practices in their striving to attain a dignified who are vulnerable to diverse forms of discrim-
life and work. Thus, Chilean migration policies, ination, exploitation, misrecognition, and dis-
labor laws, and bureaucratic procedures fail to regard when looking for ways to accomplish
correspond to the life-work experiences and their dreams and aspirations as migrants in a
moral judgments of migrants, their real employ- new country. In trying to make sense of why
ers, and even those intermediaries that com- migrants, and many other people, in different
pose the black market. For migrant applicants, ethnographic settings, persist, endure, and con-
the state appears to be an ambivalent cluster of tinue to attach themselves to objects that work
institutions, state agents, and bureaucratic pro- against their wellbeing (Berlant 2011), this ar-
cesses positioned in spaces that control migra- ticle has shown ethnographically how desires
tion through a labor market crossed by informal result in new forms of statehood and in the
and exploitative practices. For employers who mobilization of diverse forms of agency and
are complicit of migrants purchasing contracts resistance to realize them, even if at times they
and intermediaries who actively participate in foreshadow uncertainty and reinforce the fragil-
the black market producing and circulating fake ities these life projects contain.
documents, the state’s tardiness and failure be-
come a source of revenue and a business oppor-
tunity of speculative practices parallel to state Acknowledgments
planning (cf. Bear 2011).
Haitian women’s strategies to secure legal I am grateful to the research participants who
residence in the country interrogate how labor collaborated with me in this project. I would
formality as an object of desire impacts state ef- also like to thank Christina Woolner, Peter
forts of migration control and reveal how states Lockwood, Sian Lazar, Andrew Sanchez, the So-
presume and attain the formalization of migrant cial Anthropology Research Associates network
labor in practice. These strategies are afforded by at the University of Cambridge, and the anony-
policies that seek to amend an outdated law in mous reviewers for their generous engagement
the face of an unprecedent immigration boom, and comments on earlier drafts of this article.
bureaucracies that collapse, paperwork that be- Research was funded by the Economic and So-
comes commercialized, and state agents who cial Research Council of the United Kingdom
stamp permits to migrants waiting to become (G108115 JFAG/116).
legal residents in a new country. The state and
its dissonances are profoundly significant for
migrant livelihoods, mapping the logic and ra-
tionale that guide migrant subjectivities through Sofía Ugarte received her PhD in social anthro-
institutions and the relationships of power that pology from the University of Cambridge. Her
constitute them. In doing so, the materialization research focuses on the intersections between
of desires and aspirations for good migrant live- gendered migration and racism in Latin Amer-
lihoods constitute contemporary statehood and ica and its convergence with anthropological
configure its shapes in everyday life. debates about state-formation and economic
The pursuit of desired formality is based on practices in postcolonial contexts. Her PhD
promises of legality, stability, prosperity, and was an ethnographic study of Haitian women’s
a better life and involves the negotiation of its everyday encounters with state agents and em-
meaning in legal frameworks, documentary ployers in Santiago, Chile. She is currently an
practices, and migrant livelihoods navigating the affiliated lecturer and postdoctoral research fel-
state’s institutional reality. These promises sit- low at the Department of Social Anthropology,
uate many as precarious mobile workers in the University of Cambridge, UK.
global economy and in national labor markets, Email: asu25@cam.ac.uk12 | Sofía Ugarte
Notes years of permanent residence in the country.
Considering these restrictions and the incentive
1. Throughout the twenty-first century, Latin to informalize migrant labor, the ethnographic
America has witnessed the intraregional dis- cases in this article describe situations in which
placement of millions of its inhabitants. In this Haitian women seek formal work in family
context, Chile has experienced an immigration businesses and small shops.
boom not seen in its recent history by receiving 7. This can be in large part due to language dif-
in the past years hundreds of thousands of Latin ferences hindering their understanding of the
American and Caribbean migrants (INE 2018; Chilean legal framework and bureaucratic pro-
INE-DEM 2019). cesses but also due to migration networks that
2. In the mid-nineteenth century, the state sought facilitate this practice. Moreover, in line with
to attract European settlers who would bring political discourses that blame Haitians for the
economic progress, contributing to Chile’s na- country’s “immigration crisis,” there can even
scent industries, banking, and commerce. be an institutional bias that prompts a closer in-
3. Per 2012–2019 Migration Department data, spection to their documents in comparison to
around 60 percent of temporary visas were migrants from other countries.
granted to migrants proving a formal work rela- 8. Until 2019, the state still processed and ana-
tion. The remaining visas include entrepreneurs, lyzed visa applications in paper.
students, visas following bilateral agreements
(Mercosur), among others.
4. In Santiago and the metropolitan area, the Mi- References
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