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Ethnoscripts 17 (1) _ 2015: "Anthropology and Art" (Gesamtheft):Redaktionsleitung: Michael Pröppe

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Anthropology and Art

Soziale Mobilität für Frauen durch bildungsmotivierte Land-Stadt-Migration: Eine Biographie aus Malaysi

Thimm, Viola

Soziale Mobilität für Frauen durch bildungsmotivierte Land-Stadt-Migration: Eine Biographie aus Malaysia

Religion, (Trans-)Nationalism and the Dynamics of(De-)Diasporisation of Migrant Communitie

Behloul, Samuel M.

Religion, (Trans-)Nationalism and the Dynamics of (De-)Diasporisation of Migrant Communities

Hidden People: Researching undocumented migratio

Huschke, Susann

E t h n o S c r i p t s
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR AKTUELLE 
ETHNOLOGISCHE STUDIEN
Ethnologie und Migration
eISSN: 2199-7942
Jahrgang 16  Heft 2  I  2014
Susann Huschke
Hidden People
Researching undocumented migration
Ethnoscripts 2014  16 (2): 114-128
eISSN 2199-7942
Universität Hamburg
Institut für Ethnologie
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 (West)
D-20146 Hamburg
Tel.:    040 42838 6208
E-Mail: IfE@uni-hamburg.de
http://www.ethnologie.uni-hamburg.de
Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Licence 4.0 
International: Namensnennung - Weitergabe unter gleichen Bedingungen.
Herausgeber:
Huschke     Hidden People
114
Hidden people
Researching undocumented migration
The following pictures were taken by Tillmann Engel as part of my research 
project on undocumented migration and health in Berlin (Huschke 2013). 
How can we study undocumented migration, and why should we? In my 
case, the answer to both of these questions is political activism and practical 
engagement. My collaboration with the Berlin-based Medibüro, a non-gov-
ernmental organization and political collective providing healthcare to un-
documented and uninsured migrants, significantly shaped and facilitated my 
research. A commitment to social and political change was the driving force 
behind this project, and it inspired the research methodology (see Huschke 
2014). The photographs presented here were taken in 2010, two years after 
I first started interviewing Latin American migrants in Berlin. Most of the 
people portrayed here still keep in touch. Long-term relationships with indi-
vidual people and with communities constitute the basis of ethnographic re-
search, particularly in the field of undocumented migration, shaped by fear, 
insecurity and vulnerability, a field in which trust plays a major role in all 
social relationships. The photo series starts off with images that capture re-
lationships and contexts, then moving on to some of the key issues for many 
undocumented migrants: fear and stigma, arrests and deportations, the 
struggle to find work, housing and childcare, worrying about one’s health, 
and last but not least: nurturing hope.
Susann Huschke
With Mónica on our way to a medical appointment.
115
EthnoScr ipts
With Luz in the park.
“But it isn’t easy to live like this… You always have to hide something, keep it 
secret. You are not free; you cannot talk freely about things.” (Luz)
Huschke     Hidden People
116
“Hello Susann
How are you
It’s been a long time since we 
have heard from you
I want to tell you that we are 
going back to Chile
The police has taken my Dad 
and they are deporting all of us
We are not doing well. 
We have time until Tuesday to 
buy our tickets, and if we can’t, 
they’ll keep my Dad in prison 
until we organized it. 
Chao 
Clarisa and family”
117
EthnoScr ipts
“And… the only thing I said when they arrested me was:’What crime have 
I committed? What did I do wrong? The only offense I committed was to 
work and send some money home. That’s all!‘“ (Esperanza)
Immigration
department 
in Berlin. 
Deportation prison.
Huschke     Hidden People
118
Susann: And you came to Berlin because your sister lives here, too?
Luz:  Yes. (...) And I arrived at my sister’s, with the kid… And it turned out to 
not be that easy. I moved out because there were problems with her and 
Federico [her two-year old son]. He cried, and she was annoyed by the 
smell of the diapers, and that it was messy sometimes and all that.
Susann:  Like it is with a kid, right?
Luz:  Yea, and she didn’t understand. So I decided to move out. But finding 
another apartment was really not easy.
119
EthnoScr ipts
Susann:  How many hours did you work?
Dominga:  Four hours, sometimes five. Six days a week.
Susann:   And did they pay you?
Dominga:  No, because their idea was: we bring you over here, we help 
you with that. We bring you here and then you pay with your 
labor. They reduced my debt by 50 Euros a month.
Huschke     Hidden People
120
“So, listen, this is what happened to me. Two month after I got to Germany, 
a total wreck, I had no one, I knew no one. I was looking for a place to stay. 
And another Latina, Ecuadorian, from the same village, brought me to her 
place, so I could live there. And I paid her… I paid for the whole apartment! 
Despite the fact that she was supposedly helping me! What came out of that? 
I paid 350 Euros per month. And supposedly, she was helping me with that. 
But what it meant was that she let me pay for everything!” (Fernando)
121
EthnoScr ipts
“So that was difficult because, 
first of all, I didn’t have a 
kindergarden. I didn’t know 
where to leave him. I wanted 
to work, but couldn’t leave him 
anywhere. That was a problem, 
to find a kindergarden where 
they would accept us without 
papers, because they all want 
to see papers. So that went 
on for half a year. I looked for 
work, took him with me. He 
was still very little, you know, 
I simply put him to sleep, like 
in Bolivia, in a carton box. 
That’s how it was.” (Luz)
Huschke     Hidden People
122
Susann: So you never went to the doctor when you lived in Berlin?
Cesar: Um… no! I never went to the doctor, because for an illegal, 
it is forbidden to get sick. You can’t get sick when you’re 
illegal. If you get sick, you will have to pay a steep price: your 
deportation and a lot of money. (…) They call the police, and  
   then there’s a deportation. And that’s  
   why I told all the illegals that I helped  
   in Berlin: you are not allowed to get   
   sick. That is a law in the life of   
   an illegal: Don’t get sick!
123
EthnoScr ipts
“Yes, if I had health insurance, I would go more often 
to get a check-up for my lupus. But now, because the 
doctors can’t treat me regularly, they always say, come 
back in three months or six months. I think that is 
because I don’t have insurance.”  (Luz)
Huschke     Hidden People
124
“And I always go: ‘Don’t fall! Don’t climb on that! Don’t play on the stairs! 
Watch out, make sure the other kids don’t push you, because if you fall, I 
don’t know where to take you, to which doctor.’ For example, if she breaks a 
foot or a leg, I don’t have any [insurance] that covers that.” (Marisol)
125
EthnoScr ipts
„How can I fight this injustice? I can’t! Where should I complain? Where 
should I file an application to change my situation? Wherever I go, they will 
ask me: Are you married? Yes. To a German? No, to a Chilean [frowns]. Well, 
then you better go back to Chile! Because here, there’s no possibility to stay. 
That is a burden you carry here. It wears you down, you see, you walk to the 
metro station, and the police shows up to check people’s papers. That is a 
method, a psychological burden, for all of us here, but Marisol suffers even 
more than I do. If they want to see the papers that I don’t have, they will de-
port me, they will treat me like a criminal, they will put me where they put 
the people who are illegal: prison.” (Andrés)
Huschke     Hidden People
126
„In my church, we pray for the people without papers. 
I don’t have a visa, I don’t have papers, 
I ask God – we pray for that. The Lord has done many 
miracles in this group, 
many, many miracles! There were many people who 
were illegal,
they came to church, they asked God, and now they 
have papers. 
They have a status and live well. (…) And when you 
have this belief, things are easier, I can feel that.
That’s how my life is going to continue, I know that!“
(Tabea)
127
EthnoScr ipts
“It is, however, predictable that the limitation on human mobility, just like 
the uneqal treatment of women and slavery, will sooner or later end up on the 
garbage dump of history.“
 (Düvell 2005: 52, translation SH)
Ramira, who has been living and working 
in Berlin illegally since 2004.
Huschke     Hidden People
128
Susann Huschke received her PhD in social and cultural anthropology 
(Freie Universität Berlin) in 2012 and is currently Research Fellow at 
the Institute of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at Queen’s 
University Belfast (UK). In her PhD research (2008-2010), she criti-
cally analyzed how illegalization affects the health and well-being of 
undocumented Latin American labor migrants in Berlin. Her current 
research focuses on sex work in Northern Ireland, particularly on the 
policy discourse, hegemonic moralities and stigma.
Address correspondence to Susann Huschke, Queen’s University Bel-
fast, Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Jus-
tice, 19 University Square, BT7 1NN Belfast, United Kingdom. Email: 
susann.huschke@gmail.com 
References
Düvell, Franck (2005) Illegale Migration: Soziales Konstrukt der Neuzeit, 
Charakteristikum von Ungerechtigkeit und Ausdruck politischen Ver-
sagens. In: Jünschke, Klaus und Bettina Paul (eds.): Wer bestimmt 
denn unser Leben? Beiträge zur Entkriminalisierung von Menschen 
ohne Aufenthaltsstatus. Karlsruhe: Loeper, pp. 41–56.
Huschke, Susann (2013) Kranksein in der Illegalität. Undokumentierte 
Migrant/-innen in Berlin. Eine medizinethnologische Studie. Biele-
feld: Transcript.
Huschke, Susann (2014) Giving Back. Activist Research with Undocumen-
ted Migrants in Berlin. Medical Anthropology 34 (1). 
Online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2014.949375


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Anthropology and Art

Soziale Mobilität für Frauen durch bildungsmotivierte Land-Stadt-Migration: Eine Biographie aus Malaysia

Religion, (Trans-)Nationalism and the Dynamics of (De-)Diasporisation of Migrant Communities

Hidden People: Researching undocumented migration

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