Borders, space, and heartfelt perspectives in researching the “unsaid” about the daily lif e experiences of the children of migrants in the schools of Arica

In this chapter, I analyze the interactions between the children of migrants and Chilean children in the schools of the corridor space between Peru, Bolivia, and Chile from the side of my town in northern Chile. During my fieldwork, I wonder how influence and culture are present behind these interactions and how ideas and values of different agents on otherness build their realities and determine their daily lives, specifically in the school system of the region bordering northern Arica. At the same time, I reflect upon which main challenges and difficulties arise when conducting research with children in ever-changing spaces where research seeks to color the colorless and is understood as a common practice. More importantly, I see this study as a way of looking at ourselves in relation to the otherness. Some of the questions framing it are how the political, cultural, and social forces are present in the unsaid daily life experiences of the children of migrant people from Latin American countries and children of Chilean people in the schools, and how the notion of the unsaid is constitutive of the process of being part of the Chilean educational system in the schools in northern Chile. Using interpretive autoethnography, I set myself to put the unsaid in words as a process of building knowledge from the fieldwork to connect with the imagination of the audience in a trip through this Latin American and multicultural corridor.