UC San Diego

This thesis explores how asylum seekers forced to wait at the US-Mexico border resist state violence through dance, theater, and other creative practices. By examining recent developments in anti-asylum policies, I identify waiting as one weapon – among many others – the state deploys to fortify its power and keep “undesired” bodies out. I find that the dominant framework for understanding waiting, which focuses on suffering, only partially captures the realities of life for asylum seekers who endure weaponized waiting at the border. Through their collective creation of art, asylum seekers reframe waiting, challenge state violence, endure suffering, and build new relations of care for themselves. I then consider how these creative practices are incorporated into Resiste Gozando (Resist with Joy), a small-scale political project emerging at a migrant shelter in Tijuana. In doing so, I hope to shed light on the affective complexity of waiting and the conditions of possibility for resistance, opening up new pathways for researching and supporting asylum seekers' well-being as they wait at the US-Mexico border and beyond.