The construction and deconstruction of fear: Experiences of immigrants before the police

Abstract

This paper deals with the feeling of fear by irregular immigrants before the police. I consider fear as a construction in which a number of agents participate on the basis of the aprioristic discourses of illegality and inadequateness incorporated by the immigrant. The racialization and ethnicization of the immigration are part of this context. The deconstruction of fear is possible, and implies a process of the elaboration of a self-image as a subject of rights. This paper is based upon an ongoing broader comparative research on the work of organizations that mediate between immigrants and the society of reception in the cities of Porto Alegre, Buenos Aires and Madrid. The conceptual background is given by the notions of power and discourse, as in Foucault, and of agency.