What has Been Said about the Peruvian-Chilean Border?

In Peru, migration studies are among the main drivers of research output on the southern border. During the 1990s, one of the first studies on Peruvian migration (Altamirano, n.d.) highlighted that the first migration corridors between Peru and other Latin American countries, mainly Argentina and Venezuela, dated back to the 1950s and 1960s.

Later, the 1980 internal armed conflict multiplied the number of Peruvians who immigrated, not only to the United States, Western Europe or Japan but also to some South American countries, including Argentina and Chile (^{Altamirano, n.d.}). Simultaneously, mobility during the 1990s was marked by economic recession and underemployment (^{Altamirano, n.d.}) caused by neo-liberal adjustment policies, whereas according to other authors (^{Alvites, 2011}), the period from 1990 to 2007 shows a sustained increase in emigration processes.

The migration processes of the 1990s and early 2000s led to the consolidation of migration studies focused on specific matters such as remittances (^{Altamirano, 2009}) or sustaining long-distance family relationships (^{Alvites, 2011}), while the mobility of Peruvians towards Chile was becoming an underexplored field of study.

However, one of the most important materials would be the research conducted by ^{Berganza and Cerna (2011}) on individual mobility between the cities of Tacna (Peru), Arica and Iquique (Chile), furthering the knowledge on dynamics of border mobility and decentralizing reflections on Peruvian emigration from other cities in the country, beyond the metropolis Lima. In addition, a study on borders and informal and illegal economies in Peru was published in 2017 (^{Dammert et al., 2017}) that highlighted the importance of border cities for circuits of informal and illegal markets within the framework of a global system.

Regarding Chilean studies, “since the 1990s, mounting concerns about migration in Chile monopolized communication and political discourse, spawning considerable research output” (^{Guizardi, Nazal et al., 2017}, p. 29). Nevertheless, as subsequently indicated by ^{Guizardi, Nazal et al. (2017)}, Chilean research output, from the 2000s, encompassed various socio-anthropological studies on the migration phenomenon in Chile.

Although the aforementioned statement shows the origin of the concern about social studies on Peruvian-Chilean relations, Chilean migration studies from the 2000s suffered from some biases such as the assumptions that Chile has become a priority Latin American migration destination from the late 1990s to present day or that migration is a predominantly Santiguan phenomenon.

After these initial Peruvian-Chilean migration studies, research on the phenomenon from northern Chile must also be considered, including the studies by ^{Valdebenito and Guizardi (2015}), who developed an ethnography of Peruvian migrants in northern Chile; by ^{Guizardi et al. (2014)}, who conducted a visual ethnographic study on spatial appropriations of Peruvian and Bolivian migrants in the International Terminal of Arica and its surroundings; by Guizardi, Nazal et al. (2017), who reported a critical methodological perspective on migration studies in Chile; by ^{Tapia et al. (2017)}, who made a key contribution about the problem of individual mobility in northern Chile and southern Peru from a circulatory territory perspective;³ by ^{Liberona et al. (2017)}, who conducted an investigation on mobility from northern Chile to southern Peru for healthcare services; by ^{Valdebenito (2018)}, who published critical perspectives on the concepts of cross-border urban complexes and regions in the Tacna-Arica context; and last, by ^{Dilla and Álvarez (2018)}, who analyzed migration phenomena between northern Chile and southern Peru from the theoretical perspective of cross-border urban complexes.⁴

In short, research on Peruvian-Chilean migration originated in the likely misrepresented (^{Guizardi, Nazal et al., 2017}) phenomenon of overwhelming Peruvian migration to Chilean territory, which has been extensively studied by researchers from both countries. However, from the second decade of the twentieth century, the Peruvian-Chilean problem begins to decentralize, as its research problems and loci of enunciation move to the border territories themselves, with Chilean research always prevailing over Peruvian studies.

However, another important fact for Peruvian-Chilean relations strengthened different lines of research. During this period, in 2014, the Judgment of the International Court of Justice of The Hague on the case concerning the maritime dispute between Peru and Chile (^{Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Perú [MRE], 2015}) consolidated a previous line of national and institutional research on borders from a methodological perspective, particularly focusing on binational history studies (^{Cavieres, 2006}; ^{Cavieres & Aljovín de Losada, 2005}; ^{Parodi & González, 2014}; ^{Cavieres, 2015}), on education and intercultural studies (^{Bustos, 2017}; ^{Pizarro & Bustos, 2015}), and on international relations studies (^{Panfichi & Venero, 2017}).

Last, reviewing studies on the Peruvian-Chilean border highlights a series of problems, such as centralism in the conception of the border problem, based on theoretical and methodological bases of its analysis. In turn, the Peruvian-Chilean border problem is closely related to the phenomenon of mobility, but those studies have overlooked other problems such as the criminal economy, trade policies, water problems and territorial governance, among other topics.

In summary, Peruvian-Chilean migration studies indicate a recent decentralization of research, which is starting to highlight some border phenomena and corridors. Accordingly, we should investigate the theoretical-territorial assumptions that are made when interpreting the Peruvian-Chilean border.

Street Food Sales

The food offered for sale in informal clothing and footwear markets varies by time of day. The diversity of traded products, as well as merchant specificities, exposes a series of socio-cultural characteristics whose interpretation allows us to reconsider territorial analysis categories for the Peru-Chile border corridor.

The day starts with breakfast sales, followed by brunch, lunch and afternoon snack sales. The breakfasts offered range from fruit and vegetable juices to hot drinks, such as api,¹¹ maca smoothies, avena [oat-based] and soy milk, among other beverages consumed when eating empanadas and sopaipillas [fried dough].¹² Similarly, among the food offered, lunches include chakepa [toasted and coarsely ground barley] soup, chairito [chairo], thimpo de trucha [trout soup], mazamorra de calabaza [pumpkin pudding], fried cheese, chicharrón de alpaca [alpaca chicharrón (fried alpaca meat)], chuño soup, picante a la tacneña [spicy dried lamb or llama stew], picante de mariscos [Peruvian spicy seafood stir-fry], ceviche and rice with chicken. As one merchant leader comments:

Those who bring soy and anything alike, in the morning, they come with their soy bag, they buy it, they leave it, they offer it, they buy it. Early on, they also sell carrot extract; similarly, they arrive early. Here, everyone does business, we all buy, nobody leaves without selling anything, they always sell something to support their household (cited by ^{Jiménez, 2018}).

After offering breakfast from the early hours of the morning to 10 or 11 am, to both merchants and users and clients of informal clothing markets, brunch or mid-morning foods are sold, including gelatins, ice creams, sweets and quail eggs, among others. As the merchant leaders mention, the mid-morning meal distribution hours serve, in turn, for charging for the food offered earlier in the day: breakfast

Other businesses include ice cream, quail eggs, and fruits as well; those people who are passing by (people with disabilities) sell their chocolates, batteries, toilet paper, records and music. And even the ladies who skip breakfast in the morning, expectant mothers, they are pregnant, also end up charging; they charge after having left the breakfast (interview of a merchant leader, cited by ^{Jiménez, 2018}).

Source: Personal archive.

Figure 3: Fruit seller  

In the early hours of the afternoon, immediately after noon, lunch sales begin, which may range from chakepa [toasted and coarsely ground barley] soup, chairito [chairo], thimpo de trucha [trout soup], mazamorra de calabaza [pumpkin pudding], fried cheese and alpaca chicharrón. These foods are offered to both stallholders and informal market clients, who can purchase several products, mainly from the South American highlands (Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 4: Foods for sale 

Source: Personal archive

Figure 5: Foods for sale: alpaca chicharrón and thimpo de trucha [trout soup]  

Thus, the products sold by food vendors lead us to rethink the Peru-Chile border corridor. If we limit the border corridor to the Tacna-Arica relationship, how can we explain the cultural presence of the Peruvian highlands typical of the Peru-Bolivia border corridor in a commercial activity recognized in the literature as specific to the Peru-Chile border? The same question is raised when analyzing the characteristics of food merchants. Selling second-hand clothing and footwear is not merely moving merchandise but also involves dynamics and territorial anchors in each of its various processes: purchasing clothes in Iquique or Arica (Chile), organizing the clothes at the Arica International Terminal (Chile), smuggling the clothes through the border checkpoints of Peru and Chile, moving the clothes inside Tacna (Peru) and selling these products at informal clothing and footwear informal, in addition to the various economic activities surrounding the aforementioned informal markets.

This process must be mentioned because although the informal economy may affect some vulnerable sectors of the population, the informal economy shows a marked gender division of labor. This is a key feature in food sales.

Source: Personal archive

Figure 6: Seller of picante a la leña [spicy dried lamb or llama stew] 

Source: Personal archive

Figure 7: Female food vendor  

The feminization of informal practices not only encompasses most merchants of second-hand clothing and footwear but also produces economic and survival dynamics (^{Sassen, 2003}) in the work circuits associated with the sale of clothing and footwear. Thus, women are not only the primary used clothing and footwear vendors or intermediaries between comisionistas [commission agents] and paseras [border crossers] (^{Dilla & Álvarez, 2018}; ^{Guizardi et al., 2014}) but also the protagonists of food shops near the informal markets (Figure 6 and Figure 7).

The concept of feminization of survival (^{Sassen, 2003}) as an analytical key is important in a context in which government revenue is collected from the income of women involved in informal economy dynamics because women’s informal work enables a development circuit from which local governments benefit (through taxes paid to the municipality). This informal work includes the sale and transport of clothing as well as the commercial experience around the sale of food as one of the main businesses near the informal markets.

Again, furthering the analysis of the social, economic and cultural dynamics of informal clothing and footwear markets allow us to gain a broader perspective of the Peru-Chile border corridor, beyond Tacna-Arica, observing that the same characteristics of the border population (paseras [border crossers]) also extend to the used clothing and footwear informal markets.

Last, the spatial arrangement of the informal businesses can be classified into food stands and food carts. Food carts are located in the informal market walkways, whereas stands are mostly clustered around benches where diners sit down to eat under the shade of a tarp. The food stands are not arranged uniformly, that is, they can be located at the entrance, at the ends of the informal market, or near the avenues around the informal market, thereby providing easy access to kitchen products and utensils (Figure 8).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 8: Food stands 

Conversely, food vendors who choose to offer their products inside the informal market find various ways of moving between the busiest areas (Figure 9).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 9: Food cart 

In conclusion, the food trade around second-hand clothing and footwear stands provides us with a series of analytical keys of Peru-Chile border dynamics. First, the feminization of informal economic activities extends beyond primarily border activities such as trade and moving second-hand clothing from Chile to Peru, thus indicating that the characteristics of the border phenomenon extend beyond the concept of border because satellite informal economic activities at clothing and footwear informal markets retain similar characteristics.

In turn, culinary activities accompany the experience of informal border trade because the relationship between merchants and clients is not limited to a trade relationship but instead constructs a public sphere of relationships including food experiences shared both among merchants themselves and with the clients.

Details regarding food allow us to reconstruct the circuits and corridors that transcend the Tacna-Arica space, antonomastically regarded as the border space; the latter is constructed through a series of concatenations among other territories such as Puno, Ilave, Huancané, Chuchuito and Yunguyo in the Peruvian highlands as well as La Paz, Oruro, Desaguadero and Potosí in Bolivia, extending to the same dynamics created from Iquique in Chile. Hence, the presence of highland foods allows us to redraw the border corridor beyond its current limits.

Last, the layout of the stands and food carts reflects a commercial space constructed based on the collaboration between merchant stands and food vendors; this collaboration is not limited to the arrangement of the stands but instead involves the strengthening of bonds of trust and reciprocity while watching over the vendor stand or cart when the owner is absent, changing money into smaller amounts (sencilleo),¹³ bartering and buying or selling on credit.

Transportation Services

Transportation services around informal markets show various manifestations. The presence of the informal market increases urban mobility and public transportation in the sales areas, including busses, taxis and motorcycle taxis,¹⁴ to such an extent that the last two types of transportation have stands inside the informal markets (Figure 10).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 10: Taxi stand  

However, the offer of transportation services is not limited to transferring users and customers in and out of the informal clothing and footwear market; the customers’ routes can be highly heterogeneous and affect the analytical proposal of the informal market as a junction or transport hub, extending beyond the purely border concept.

Thus, transportation services transfer not only clients but also all merchants and their merchandise, who thus also avoid, within the city, the constant control of local security agents. Furthermore, transporting merchandise already moved to the city of Tacna from Arica and Iquique (Chile) involves two routes: one from the home of each merchant to the respective informal market and another from the perimeter of the informal market to the stand.

The merchandise is transported from the merchant’s home to the informal market in station wagon taxis, which are often driven by the merchants themselves, as a family-run business and as a complement to other labor activities, such as transportation or border work. In turn, the merchandise is transported from the perimeter of the informal market to the respective stand in carts driven mainly by seniors, who move merchandise, such as toys, clothing and footwear, among others, for 80 cents (Figure 11).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 11: Senior with a cart  

The merchandise is moved, both inside the informal market and around the city, early in the morning (4 am), returning home late in the afternoon (5 or 6 pm). This activity has a specific profile: adult males and the elderly. In contrast to food sales, predominantly female, transportation services rely predominantly on adult males who have access to some capital to support the mobility business. However, the profile of those who transport goods in carts is the elderly male population. Although we cannot address the feminization of survival, we can emphasize that the dynamics of economic survival against capitalism are underpinned by the most indigent and disadvantaged population.

Last, as mentioned above, the main taxi and motorcycle taxi stands are located around the informal markets, whereas most public transportation users come from districts near Tacna such as Ciudad Nueva, Gregorio Albarracín or Alto de la Alianza. Again, the analysis of the phenomenon of mobility around clothing and footwear informal markets contradicts the so-called Tacna-Arica isomorphism of the Peru-Chile border corridor by highlighting the diverse origins of informal market users, beyond the city of Tacna.

Other Services

This section on other types of services includes selling music and renting bathrooms, showers and warehouses, as well as other services, primarily related to personal care; in addition, formal services, including cell phone and microfinance companies, which provide their services to merchants, can also be found in informal markets (Figure 12).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 12: Cell phone service provider 

Other services predominantly involves informal businesses, such as renting spaces in houses near the informal market and shower and bathroom services, in addition to alternative healthcare services, ranging from massages and natural skin care products to alternative treatments for discomforts or diseases. Conversely, formal services such as cell phone and microfinance companies take advantage of the informal economy in two broad senses: first, by harnessing the possibilities offered by the informal market in terms of access to and variety of buyers and, second, by hiring young people, predominantly contractors, who must reach specific sales goals for their monthly salaries (Figure 13).

Source: Personal archive

Figure 13: Personal care services 

Although those who provide other services have a more heterogeneous profile than do food vendors and public transportation providers, they are predominantly young workers, who reinvent forms of economic survival thanks to the possibilities offered by informal clothing and footwear markets.

Similarly to food vendors, the providers that offer personal care products, such as hygiene and health products, are scattered inside the informal market; in turn, the stands of other services are located at the entrances and exits of the informal markets and sell music, finance services and cell phones, whereas bathrooms, showers and warehouses are primarily located at the ends of the informal market, within houses and hotels near the venue.

The stands around the informal market can be both mobile and fixed because their main users are not only the visitors but also the merchants themselves, who need some services when spending long periods of the day at the informal market and when accompanied by their family.

The situation of the users, both visitors and merchants, determines the various uses of these services, ranging from food and transportation to other services. This is important to mention because the presence of services near the stands in informal clothing markets reflects an experience being built of living inside the informal market. Merchants and street vendors not only maintain a trade relationship but also use the commercial space as a meeting point for social interactions between buyers and merchants as well as between merchants and vendors of nearby businesses; these relationships involve not only trade (and the possible economic revenue from this commercial exchange) but also interactions (^{Lacarrieu, 2016}) ranging from borrowing and getting change to watching over stands and merchandise, among others.

Thus, the heterogeneity of the actors located inside and outside the informal clothing and footwear market implies not only a commercial interaction but also other meanings; in the words of Ángela ^{Giglia (2012}), “street vending is an attractive activity -among other things- for the possibility of being in the open public space, seeing a lot of people go by and talking to and building relationships with different people” (^{Giglia, 2012, p. 93}). The public sphere strengthened through social and commercial relationships between buyers and sellers extends to interactions between the vendors themselves either by watching over each other’s stands or by borrowing money, bartering and sencilleo [changing money into smaller amounts] as well as by the care for their own body and that of their relatives. Hence, the public sphere constructed by the heterogeneous panoply of actors in informal clothing and footwear markets allows us to further characterize the composition of the Peru-Chile border corridor.