GESTIÓN MIGRATORIA EN NORTE Y CENTROAMÉRICA: MANIFESTACIONES Y CONTESTACIONES 1

This paper analyzes the manifestations of and contestations to the migration management paradigm in North and Central America. I pay special attention to the understudied Central American Isthmus countries. I argue that migration management is not only an important response to increasing transnational migration but it also shapes the institutional arrangements of a new regional mobility regime, including North and Central America alike. I draw on the multi-level and multi-actor framework of ethnographic regime analysis in order to analyze both the institutional arrangements of migration management as well as the actors, practices and strategies of what I call the power of migration. In doing so I focus empirically on the Regional Conference on Migration in North and Central America (RCM), the new migration law in Costa Rica as well as the dynamics at the Costa Rican northern border region.