Administrative practices and multilateral cooperation in the frontier municipalities of Chiapas

Abstract

This paper examines multilateral cooperation between local governments and international organisations related to the support given to migrants in the process of regularisation, from the perspective of political-administrative actors in the frontier municipalities of Chiapas in Mexico. In particular, it focuses on how partnerships and their objectives materialise and how they influence the design, organisation and implementation of support programmes, with the emphasis placed on the administrative practices of local officials. The methodology adopted is mainly based on interviews with key protagonists, private conversations and the observations of participants. The central argument is that these multilateral partnerships and programmes, as they are put into practice, develop at a distinctive personal level, resulting more in agreements contextualised by local dynamics and the subjectivities of the actors involved, rather than in situations adjusted to institutional strategies. The reflection of this article does not result from a deductive analysis of migration legislation, but rather from the perspective of bureaucratic practices as a cultural product, analysing the way in which instrumentalised power structures and global ideas about migration are overlapped by interests and subjectivities at the local level.