Syndemics, Citizenship, and the Politics of Deportation in the Dominican Republic

Syndemics, Citizenship, and the Politics of Deportation in the Dominican Republic

Authors: Mark Padilla, Associate Professor (Principal Investigator, Syndemics Projects), Florida International University José F. Colón Burgos, Ethnographer (Syndemics Project), Universidad de Puerto Rico Nelson Varas-Díaz, Professor, Co-Investigador (Syndemics Project), Universidad de Puerto Rico Armando Matiz, Research Associate, Project Director (Syndemics Project), Florida International University

Prepared for the American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Washington, D.C., December 3, 2014.

Global “deportation regime”

¨  “Deportability” – The social, political, economic, and demographic processes that produce often racialized “others” as individuals who can be removed from national territories through the legal and bureaucratic procedures of nation-states.

¨  Deportation Regime: A global industry of deportation characterized by heightened securitization and by states’ ideological and infrastructural investment in three distinct but interrelated global wars: the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on immigration.1 Protests against President Obama’s

near-record number of deportations, predicted to exceed President Bush’s record by the end of 2014

1. Based on De Genova and Peutz, eds. (2010). The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham: Duke U. Press.

Escalation of Dominican deportations from US (1963-2003)1

1. Graph adapted from David Brotherton and Luis Barrios. (2011). Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and their Stories of Exile. New York: Columbia University Press.

“Following the enactment of IIRAIRA in 1996, the number of Dominicans deported for noncriminal offenses increased exponentially.” (Broth-erton and Barrios, 2011)

1996: Enactment of the U.S. Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA)

Brotherton and Barrios’ notion of “social bulimia” ¨  “Social bulimia” used to

describe the process of cultural inclusion while expelling entire populations en masse

¨  B&B’s work on Dominican deportees illustrates how the deportation regime adapts, assimilates, and integrates immigrant cultures in a segmented fashion, but simultaneously dehumanizes, incarcerates, and removes immigrant bodies back to the global south.

Some critical gaps in research on deportees

¨  The lived experiences, perceptions, social and health consequences of deportation for the growing number of people experiencing such “forced migration.” ¤ One important exception: Yolanda Martin’s work “Wasting

Away” ¨  The need for research on processes of returning “home”

post-deportation ¤ How do individuals re-constitute identities post-deportation? ¤ How do they cope with that trauma upon return “home”? ¤ How and to what extent are the re-incorporated? ¤ What are their strategies for economic survival? ¤ What are the impacts on overall health and well-being?

Syndemics Project: 2013-2018

¨  “Migration, Tourism, and the HIV/Drug Use Syndemic in the Dominican Republic” (1 R01 DA031581-01A1, PI: Mark Padilla)

¨  Mixed-method research on the drug and HIV epidemics among male tourism employees in the Dominican Republic

¨  Involves ethnographic an survey research with male tourism migrants in Boca Chica and Santo Domingo

¨  Uses syndemic theory to theorize the social and structural factors that may result in an HIV/Drug use syndemic

Conceptual framework: A syndemic linked to the tourism industry?

Developing theories on the connection between deportation and tourism labor

¨  Little attention in the existing research on deportation, especially on the connections between deportation and tourism labor in the Caribbean

¨  Our research to date: Almost all current tourism laborers with international migratory experience are deportees

¨  A global system of “geonarcotics” incorporates these men only as low-level laborers in illicit informal economies both in the “core” and the “periphery.”

¨  Local economies and cultures shape informal economies and the strategies that deportees use to make a living (e.g., “sex work” as a market demand in the DR due to the sex tourism industry)

Structural factors generating syndemic conditions for Dominican deportees working in tourism labor

¨  Have participated in illicit, socially stigmatized street economies on two sides of the transnational circuit

¨  Discrimination in (formal) employment due to presumed criminality

¨  Often separated or estranged from their families ¨  Histories of selling and/or consuming illicit drugs ¨  Extended periods of incarceration ¨  Have struggled for years with addiction and treatment ¨  Have little access to effective interventions, such as harm

reduction approaches ¨  Lack of access to clinical treatment for addiction, which is

essentially non-existent in the DR

Official government statistics of deportation

Place of deportation

n %

Puerto Rico 307 9.99

USA 2,767 90.01

Total 3,074

Deportee Nationality

n %

Dominican Republic

3,893 0.6

Department of Migration of the Dominican Republic 2013-2014

US Department of Homeland Security 2013

US Department of Homeland Security

2013

64.1%

11.1% 9.7% 7.7%

0.9% 0.6% 0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

Mexico Guatemala Honduras El Salvador Ecuador Dominican Republic

The social production of stigma against deportees in the Dominican Republic ¨  Male deportees described

as heavily involved in drug use and drug trade; “Dominicanyorks” are often blamed for local increases in crime.

¨  “Deportado” (deportee) functionally synonymous with “drogadicto” (drug addict) or even “narcotraficante” (narco-trafficker)

Bureaucratic procedures – such as the mug shots taken of all arriving deportees – are symbolic of their social labeling as criminals. Photo by Mark Padilla.

Drugs 59% Illegal entry / Migration 14%

Assault 6%

Multiple Criminal Charges 5%

Non-criminal 4%

Theft 4%

Homicide 2%

Sexual Assault 2%

Child pornography 1%

Arms possession 2% Not specified 1%

Charges against Deportees (N=102)

“War on drugs” and Dominican deportation

*Data from ethnographic observation of deportee registration event, Sept 17, 2014, Santo Domingo.

The case of “Fernando”

¨  [Add images to this slide]

Conclusion: Theorizing the syndemic factors among deportees working in tourism

Illicit Drug use

Migration, deportation, and tourism

HIV/Drug Abuse

Syndemic VIH/AIDS

Figure adapted from Singer, Merrill (2010)

Social Production of “deportability”

Expulsion and trauma of deportation

Stigmatization of new arrivals

Reinsertion into informal labor

Informal tourism labor (drugs, sex work)

Lack of access to drug treatment

Mental health sequelae

Worsening of addiction

Thank you!

¨  The National Institutes for Health is acknowledged for support of the research reported in this presentation [National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant #1 R01 DA031581-01A1, PI: Padilla]

¨  We thank the following individuals from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo: Adrián Puello Guerrero, Ana Estévez, Leda Herasme, Jorge Asjana. We also wish to thank the following individuals for their support: Alexis Martinez, Caroline Parker, Alexander Fernandez, Martin Tsang.