Hybrid Districts: Making visible the invisible networks in Cúcuta and San Antonio del Táchira

Anabella Acevedo Peña

HYBRID DISTRICTS MAKING VISIBLE THE INVISIBLE NETWORKS IN THE CÚCUTA-SAN ANTONIO DEL TÁCHIRA BORDERLAND

José Castrellón, Pimpineros, 2018

Anabella Acevedo Peña

I. INTRODUCTION In last handful of decades, the world has been going through an “economic restructuring that has contributed to (…) the rise of a new, service-dominated economic complex” (Sassen, 1994). Life shifted its epicenter to profit-making, especially in big urban centers, increasing inequality, marginalization and explosions of slums. The rise of enclaves of mega wealth surrounded by poverty sectors are the main traits of the 21st century cities.

In the middle of this context, border regions are one of the most vulnerable ones due to conflict between countries and the presence of migrants and refugees. These are distant from the economic and political centers with weak presence of state governance systems, and, therefore, with deficiency of services and infrastructure. This also means that governments from both sides usually are unable to coordinate security and justice, translating into impunity.

Finally, border regions have very little opportunities, which makes the easy choice to engage in activities that take advantage of the differences in economic systems from both sides. (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020) Informal exchange then is born in these contexts out of the necessity of the poorest of the poor, “a rational and legitimate response by the urban poor to difficult urban conditions. It is a process that social justice–oriented planners can use as a guide for building a more inclusive, responsive, and equitable city” (Devlin, 2018). This communicates the flaws that the city has not recognized yet, hacking the economic system and creating innovative solutions that challenge the established order and our own imagination.

Alternative practices are the response to the general crisis, an answer that seeks to reimagine growth, challenging the system and proposing different models that help build new socioeconomic organizations. As Teddy Cruz said, “the best ideas in the shaping of the city in the future will not come from enclaves of economic power and abundance, but in fact, from sectors of conflict and scarcity from which an urgent imagination can inspire to rethink urban growth today” (Teddy Cruz, 2013, TED talk).

II. BOUNDARIES AND ITS CATEGORIZATION

porous, fluid and overall zonal”, representing zones that interconnect cultural, political and economic boundaries (Langer and Fernández, 2020). Mignolo adds into this arguing that “frontiers are conceptualizations of both knowledge and space”, for instance, the frontier between thought and reality or the frontier of knowledge.

On the other hand, terms such as “boundary” have a more abstract connotation. It is defined as “a real or imagined line that marks the edges of something”. Going further, “edge” is defined as “the outside limit of an object, a surface, or an area”, but it was also defined by Kevin Lynch, in his most influential work “The Image of the City”, as linear elements between two kinds of areas (Lynch, 1960, p. 62). In this sense, “frontiers” and “edges” are organizing rather that separating or connecting features.

Langer and Fernández, 2020

Langer and Fernández also introduce the term “borderland”, which they define as “a district near the line separating two countries or areas, (…) gray areas with all sorts of intermingling rather than clear-cut divisions”. Lynch defines “districts” as character areas and separate visual identity. Continuities and homogeneities define all characters of districts with their materials, textures, forms and spaces Imageability gives people a more important dimension or personality, a vibrant image (Lynch, 1960).

III. CÚCUTA AND SAN ANTONIO DEL TÁCHIRA The Cúcuta-San Antonio border region form a binational urban system based on economic and social exchange, and configured as one of the most active borders in South America. (Ayala & Rodríguez, 2014). Even if there is no wall, the Táchira River acts as the physical limit between both countries, connected by the Simón Bolívar International Bridge.

The English language gives different names to concepts that, while they can appear to be similar, they are not always the same. The term “border” and “frontier”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is defined as “the line that divides two countries or areas; the land near this line”; it instantly gives a political connotation to the word by including nations, but also spatializes the concept through its objective towards the land: dividing it.

Even if they seem to be interchangeable, Langer and Fernández clarify their difference through Bradley Parker’s theory that states borders “possessed a static and restrictive character”, fixed demarcation lines, while frontiers are “more Cúcuta, San Antonio del Táchira and the Bridge, EEIM, 2019

City University of New York Spitzer Schoool of Architecture

It is important to keep in mind that this region is between Colombia, a country in the middle of an armed conflict, where paramilitary groups cause displacement and violence; and Venezuela, which is currently going through a humanitarian crisis that is causing a dramatic migratory flow of refugees.

In both cases, the population of this area requires not only solidarity in the short term, but also a sustainable plan that anticipates socioeconomic and urban integration in the long term (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020).

Even if during the 1970s previously Colombians were the one who fled from the armed conflict to a very different Venezuela, one that enjoyed the benefits of the oil-boom and was known as “Saudi Venezuela”, once the richest country in Latin America and the fourth richest economy in the world, currently, the history is very different. a. Venezuelan Migration And Its Impact In The Borders Between Colombia And Venezuela Venezuela has been going through the worst crisis in its history, suffering from strong political polarization, hyperinflation, severe food and medicine shortages, urban violence without precedent, and diaspora of young productive people. This not only affects Venezuela, is impacting the whole hemisphere and beyond: according to UNCHR, more than 6 million Venezuelans have fled the country due to the crisis, political persecution or violence, turning into refugees (UNCHR, 2022). We are talking about one fifth of the population, the proportional equivalent as if in the US 60 million people fled.

Worldwide, this forced migration is the second-largest external displacement crisis in the world just behind Syria -a country that is in war, contrary to Venezuela-, therefore, the United Nations has characterized the situation as a humanitarian crisis. The most ironic part of the story is that Venezuela has the highest reserves of oil in the world, which, under better management and political vision, one that embraces what Arturo Uslar Pietri called “sembrar el petróleo” (sow the oil), could surely bring prosperity to the whole country.

Venezuelans migrants are spread all around the world, but Colombia hosts the largest number of them. The first migrant wave comprised wealthy people headed for the US and Europe; the second phases included middle-income families traveling to other Latin American countries; finally, in the last wave one could find people lacking passports and money, who began crossing the border without clear destination: they became known as los caminantes, the walkers. Cúcuta, and more specifically, La Parada, is usually the first migratory point for these refugees going through the “The Walkers Path”, covering over 4300 miles through the Andes mountain range at an average altitude of 12,000 feet. To give a comparison, the paths of Trail of Tears walked by the Cherokees in the 19th century all combined together comprised 5,043 miles.

Simón Bolívar International Bridge, El Cooperante, 2018

Anabella Acevedo Peña

b. La Parada La Parada, translated in English as “The Stop”, is a sector of Cúcuta, considered the “ground zero” of the Venezuelan diaspora. Thousands of people come to this place, some of them migrants that start their journey, others choose to stay in La Parada to survive, and some are people from San Antonio that come to buy goods and groceries that they cannot find in Venezuela due to food shortage.

The classical conception of migration is defined through its reference with a socio-economic space, where citizenship appears as a differentiating trait, determining who is native and who is a foreigner. If people establish themselves in a foreign country, then they start to be part of the migratory stock; on the contrary, if their condition is temporary, then it is considered as a migratory flow. In this sense, migrants bring visions, knowledge and practices from different places and societies, and as a consequence, new cultural, scientific, productive or social manifestations take place and transform the society (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020).

However, the predominant informal activity are pimpineros (term that comes from pimpina, the plastic gas container), individuals who smuggle, transport and distribute gasoline from Venezuela to the Colombia. This activity is highly profitable due to the disparity between subsidized Venezuelan gas prices and the highly taxed Colombian ones (Campos Iriarte, 2013). Currently, a liter of subsidized gasoline costs $0.022 in Venezuela, while in Cúcuta costs $1. To put in perspective the situation, in la Guajira, “the Contraband Cartel is capable of laundering a daily haul of 117,500 gallons for a profit of approximately $243,000 per day, which would yield the smuggling outfit more than $7 million in just one month” (Villalba, 2018).

Taxis, trucks, vans or even bicycles are modified to store more fuel, transporting it through the Simón Bolívar International Bridge or through caminos verdes (alternative unofficial routes). Smuggling is handled by paramilitaries and mafias that control assassination and extortion in San Antonio, in complicity with some Venezuelan national guards who “have not seen anything” if they pay them one dollar for each pimpina they let out of their country (Primera, 2009).

In this sense, La Parada is subject mostly to migratory flows, generating social and cultural practices that weave both sides of the frontier. In addition, Venezuelan migrants and people who live in Cúcuta are usually employed in a series of trades and activities that emerge from the strong and constant commercial exchange, but that are usually outside of the law and fluctuate according to the needs or political and economic guidelines of the border. I call these practices urban informality. La Parada then turns into a market open to the sky, full of flows that tie together a binational network that emerges from human activity, despite the frontier and political conceptions.

The fuel is used in informal gas stations to supply vehicles; however, one can spot pimpineros along the way supplying gas directly from the pimpinas, using a hose usually connected to a cut bottle turned into a funnel. The main reason why pimpineros are a whole case of study is because gasoline is one of the main ingredients for the production of cocaine. This is directly tied to guerrillas that usually are the groups that work in the processing of alkaloid drugs and cocaine supply networks in the Catatumbo region.

All of these together have turned Cúcuta and San Antonio del Táchira into “pueblos bomba”— “pump towns”—whose economies are based entirely on the smuggling, home storage and selling of gasoline (Campos Iriarte, 2013).

c. Urban Informality in the Frontier

Working as a pimpinero usually represents the only alternative for the most vulnerable individuals in this context, a great percentage of them being migrants. They are the endpoint of an informal business chain that employs more than 15,000 people and handles more than 10 million gallons (38 million liters) of fuel every month. This essentially

Many manifestations of urban informality arise in La Parada, among of which are mototaxismo, unlicensed motorcycle taxis; piratas, transportation of passengers across the frontier without permission; coleros or buhoneros, which are basically street vendors; estacadores who unofficially control the traffic; maleteros or trocheros, who are in charge of helping people to cross the border through unofficial routes; and moscos, who pay the bribe to facilitate the passage of smuggled products (Ayala & Rodríguez, 2014).

Guerrilla - ELN - FARC - EPL - FBL - Paramilitaries

Criminal Smuggling Group

Venezuelan Gas Stations

State - Authorities - Military

- The Caravan of Death - Contraband Cartel

Pimpineros

Colombian Gas Stations

Campos Iriarte and Pardo, Pimpineros, 2012

City University of New York Spitzer Schoool of Architecture

means that the families of those 15,000 pimpineros, about 60,000 people, depend on the smuggled gasoline business.

Furthermore, the North of Santander department also depends on gas smuggling: it consumes 12 million gallons of gasoline per month, but it only receives only 3.2 million gallons from an official agreement with Venezuela. The 8-million-gallon deficit then is covered by the informal sector, which keeps being punished by the authorities (Campos Iriarte, 2013).

This refers then to the highly connected realities of Cúcuta and San Antonio: in practice, the economy, social networks and interests of residents from both sides are binational: for people who live in San Antonio is more important what happens in the Cúcuta than in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. In this sense, Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman begin to imagine other interpretations of citizenship that has less to do with belonging to the nation-state. They call this the Cross-Border Citizenship, which proposes citizenship as a cultural rather than a legal concept, one that unifies rather than divides, demands that we untether identity from territory and conceive of ourselves as part of something larger and more inclusive than merely politics (Teddy Cruz, 2013).

No obstacle, invisible line, migratory control and definitely not even broken diplomatic relationships, can contain the flows of nature, the flows of people coming back and forth to buy groceries, migrants or refugees fleeing, the flow of knowledge and culture. These flows should not be contained. However, the violence and territorial control exerted by armed groups in the border do limit mobility and put at risk the existence of these networks.

IV. HYPOTHESIS Due to the binational character of the region, addressing its problems in isolation and division, only from one side or at very different times does not work. Binational regions share problems and therefore should share solutions. It is not about eliminating the border, but about having local attention mechanisms that benefit all, regardless of the side in which people reside (Santibañez, 2021).

As stated before, the persistence of flows despite the barriers suggests the existence of a binational network. This network is created by the population who daily performs different activities and build relationships that weave both sides. It helps people cope, comply or avoid the problems generated by regulations and controls through informal practices. I argue that urban informality is the answer to imposed exclusionary economic models, because its networks consolidate and promote a way of life that acknowledges human beings, regardless of race or legal nationality, deserve equal respect and dignity.

a. Hybrid District This opens the possibility to imagine a very different scenario, one in which even if the frontier is still present, it is possible to establish a more direct and unjudged connection. For people that make their lives in this binational region, the frontier becomes diffuse, an alive and hybrid space, that helps to build their identities and where their cross-border experiences turn into the common reference that allows to build relationships among migrants (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020).

Recognizing these regions is through the concept of “borderland”, as transition zones very different to the rest of the national territory (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020), just evidences and acknowledges the networks and flows that exist and weave both sides. But how can those networks be leveraged? Is it possible to rethink and improve the situation in borderlands? A humanized and democratized frontier demands respect for migrants’ rights, public policies that benefit communities within binational regions.

Design and develop binational urban plans and public policies implies rethinking the Cúcuta-San Antonio region as a “hybrid district”: binational contact zones shaped

Campos Iriarte and Pardo, Pimpineros, 2012

Campos Iriarte and Pardo, Pimpineros, 2012

José Castrellón, Pimpineros, 2018

UNHCR/ Vincent Tremeau, 2019

Human Rights Watch, 2018

Anabella Acevedo Peña

Campos Iriarte and Pardo, Pimpineros, 2012

by shared culture, with frontiers that act as permeable membranes that provide equilibrium between the interests and needs of the human groups that constantly flow in these districts, potentiating mixture and exchange.

a long chain, we earn virtually nothing but we’re an easy target for the police. It’s the violent gangs who cross the border who make the most money, we just buy from them” (Beach, 2018).

The physical outcome would result in the consolidation of a transition area between both countries that recognizes, consolidates and leverages the existing networks, as well as embrace informality as the compendium of social practices of adaptation from the bottom-up that enable many of migrant communities transgress imposed political and economic recipes of urbanization.

Instead, the real concern is the insecurity, violence, corruption and lack of job and education for the population that live or move through the frontier. To bring health guaranties, job security, educational opportunities and safety, three things are required: the support of organizations and institutions, and embracing informal practices as activities that benefit the region, the reinforcement of the presence of the State in this area.

b. Establishing The Hybrid District: Leveraging Informality Between Cúcuta And San Antonio Del Táchira There is a common interest: the construction of a shared vision that conjugates the challenges of the sociopolitical and humanitarian crisis of the frontier between Venezuela and Colombia. To achieve this, the aim should be to bring order to this region, but not through imposing division through a restrictive border, instead from accepting that the issues in these areas are shared, and accordingly require a shared solution.

It is necessary to understand that people working as pimpineros are not the problem. In words of Yuliema García, the leader of Sintragasolina, the Syndicate of Gas Workers: “We want the world to see what we are going through, to see that we are not the criminals. We are the last link in

c. The Treaty: An Attempt to Regularize A first attempt towards accepting and supporting informality was tested in 2008, when Alvaro Uribe Velez and Hugo Chávez, former presidents of Colombia and Venezuela respectively, agreed to authorize imports of subsidized gasoline from Venezuela to the Colombian border states.

50% of that gas was to help formalize pimpineros or at least include them into the economy and provide them with some security. However, private oil and gas company equally divided the purchase and distribution of the entire department’s subsidized gas—leaving thousands of pimpineros out of the agreement.

As an answer, pimpineros organized themselves around Sintragasolina, to push for a redistribution of the right to legally sell the imported fuel. After this, the syndicate and authorities of Cúcuta met to discuss and negotiate,

City University of New York Spitzer Schoool of Architecture

from which members of Sintragasolina accepted to stop smuggling if they were guaranteed job and support for their families. These conditions included work through ministries, treaties with the Venezuelan government that foster the creation of companies managed by pimpineros, investment and resources that benefit the group (La Opinion, 2015). The commitment was not fulfilled and even today the conditions are still not met.

Currently, Sintragasolina represents a large number of pimpineros families and has grown to be a considerable political force in the North of Santander region, with public officials accepting its leaders as valid interlocutors for an otherwise illegal trade. Interestingly, according to Yuliema, the syndicate makes petitions to the State for educational programs, as “education is very important to us and it’s our number one priority” (Beach, 2018).

The public opinion agrees that the ideal scenario would be to assimilate pimpineros into the formal business of selling gasoline so that they can leave the informal economy, the guerrilla bribery and avoid the risks of handling gasoline with no precautions, as well as be granted with employment and security. Unfortunately, authorities do not precisely agree: Cúcuta’s mayor, Donamaris Ramírez, expressed in 2013 that in the short term, “street sales of smuggled gas need to be eradicated” (Campos Iriarte, 2013).

As of 2021, members of Sintragasolina are being persecuted by the authorities and thrown in jail (Editora Norte Santander, 2021), which evidences the lack of understanding of the economic situation, stigma against informal workers, and the inexistence a truly effective plan that supports migrants and the whole region. d. The Big Picture: The Catatumbo Drug-Corridor The roots of the humanitarian crisis that forces Venezuelans to fled the country and the armed conflict in Colombia are both thousand-headed monsters that require intervention at national scale. As a logical and natural consequence, guerrilla groups and drug mafias took control of the border territories establishing a paralegal governance structure. To make the situation even worse, guerrillas work in complicity

with the Venezuelan military and State to move throughout the Catatumbo region over 400 metric tons of cocaine a year, worth $1.6 billion (Venezuela Investigative Unit, 2018).

While fighting between armed groups takes place in the rural areas, these disputes also permeate its urban neighborhoods (Hochmüller, 2021). Trapped in the middle of this, population that reside here is usually caught in the middle of this situation, unfortunately being victims of the violence.

However, there is no doubt that refugees and migrants that have fled Venezuela, the majority in search of economic and job opportunities, are the ones who have less options under these conditions. The nature of this complicated conflict then turns into a transnational problem that requires meaningful transnational responses, and the cooperation of both governments to successfully promote a change.

Therefore, the consolidation of Hybrid Districts in borderlands of Colombia and Venezuela that already show signs of binational networks and informal activity is a way to start tackling this transnational issue. The change must not be implemented top-down, but also it should include local participation. In being hybrid, these districts are correspondingly promoting the coexistence of State participation, that regularizes and supports the networks that already exist, empowering the population and engendering a just and equitable city.

Leveraging informality turns into the mechanism counteract those exclusionary economic models that exploit vulnerable individuals. It is undeniable that the informal sale of gas produces employment in the region, but it also provides support for a significant amount of families and two thirds of the gas supply of the Norte de Santander. So, again, the problem are not pimpineros, the problem is the system that supports exploitation instead of thrive. The emergence of Sintragasolina is an indicator of community organization, a bottom-up initiative that defends the rights and dignity of pimpineros and migrants by extension. e. Down to Local Organization Positive interventions that come from the State would include “establishing legal identity for workers and push for regulatory reforms that recognize, validate and support their work” (Chen Roever and Skinner, 2016). In other words, the recognition of pimpineros as an important socioeconomic group. Treaties between both countries suggested an attitude that was looking for shared solutions that benefited all. However, the incipient initiative was rapidly taken down by corruption, accompanied by the desire for profit among companies and drug mafias, imposing a top-down logic that only seems to benefit the “fat cats”, a model that only seeks to fill a few pockets at the expense of those that are vulnerable or in the need of job.

Despite this, the instauration of equity and dignified jobs for pimpineros is still possible, as long as Sintragasolina and the government work together in educational programs that validate their job and recognize their strengths. For instance,

José Castrellón, Pimpineros, 2018

Anabella Acevedo Peña

some of them have been working as pimpineros for more than 15 years, so they possess knowledge related to the management and the quality of gasoline, others know how to perform as car mechanics, or previously were doing another trade. The Colombian government has been introducing some labor conversion programs that offer job opportunities for pimpineros in “companies dedicated to spare parts, mini-markets, supplies for shoes, farms, among others, with the support of the business sector” (RCN Radio, 2017). From the side of Venezuela, nothing has been done yet in this matter.

Spatializing the areas in which is possible to promote these changes is highly relevant. “Access to quality infrastructure and basic services for informal workers at their workplaces” (Chen, Roever and Skinner, 2016) that protect and support migrants’ needs could help humanize the frontier and serve as the landmarks that define the area of the Hybrid District. In San Antonio, La Libertad Sport Court is a recently renovated urban facility that is directly involved into everyday city-making, where community leaders identify the main needs of their community and organize recreational activities to mitigate protection risks (UNHCR, 2022). This is a strategy that Cruz and Forman have proven to be successful in the Tijuana and San Diego border region: the studio materialized the existent informal network in this area through UCSD Community Stations. These are a network of four cross-border infrastructures co-developed with the community as knowledge platforms where education and research are co-produced. Community Stations are civic spaces that become support infrastructures for social housing and public space.

more employment opportunities that recognize their original informal practices and their needs, giving the population options that allow them to quit risking their lives in guerrilla groups.

V. CONCLUSION The idea of re interpreting Cúcuta and San Antonio del Táchira as a Hybrid District -possibly San Antonio de Cúcuta- seems to be more logical than seeing this as two separated regions. The consolidation of a binational region that admits certain benefits in favor of socioeconomic exchange, inclusion and community empowerment is definitely a smart move in which all win.

The hope is that the establishment of a Hybrid District makes visible the invisible, giving the spatial platform that strengthens local government and community capacities and leaning on and projecting existing binational networks, while “weakening the presence and dominance of non-state armed actors, who want to perpetuate violence and their businesses” (Alba-Niño, Carreño, Jimenez, Navas, Marquez, 2020). The great challenge is to make a scalable strategy that can be applied to other borderlands between Colombia and Venezuela, building cross-border citizenship and defining territories where the culture embraces equal respect and dignity for all, Venezuelans and Colombians.

What would the Cúcuta-San Antonio region look like if this was populated with similar community stations or more Sport Courts? What could be the impact of these in migrants, pimpineros and the communities that inhabit this region?

Eventually, these community stations, with the support and presence of solid and reliable governments, would lead to

José Castrellón, Pimpineros, 2018

City University of New York Spitzer Schoool of Architecture 1 Alba-Niño, Magali; Carreño Paredes, Myriam; Jiménez Millán, Álvaro; Navas, Luz; Márquez Estrada, Daniela, (2020). “Migración: Una mirada binacional desde lo humanitario”, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Barranquilla.

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5 Campos Iriarte, Ramón, (2013). “Dispatches: Pimpineros”, in Americas Quarterly, available at: www.americasquarterly.org/fulltextarticle/ dispatches-pimpineros/ 6 Chen, M; Roever, S; and Skinner, C., (2016), “Urban Livelihoods and the New Urban Agenda”, Editorial Environment and Urbanization, 34, IIED, pp. 1-12

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Primera, Maye (2009), “Los pimpineros de la frontera” in El País, available at: elpais.com/diario/2009/11/15/ negocio/1258293146_850215.html 17 RCN Radio (2017), “Avalan $5.200 millones para formalizar a pimpineros del país”, available at: www.rcnradio.com/economia/avalan5-200-millones-formalizar-pimpineros-del-pais 18 Roy, Ananya, (2009). “Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai”, Antipode, 41:1, pp 159-179.

19 Santibáñez, Jorge, (2021). “Por fin se reabre la frontera ¿Qué aprendimos?”, in Los Ángeles Times, available at: www.latimes.com/ espanol/mexico/articulo/2021-10-19/opinion-por-fin-se-reabre-lafrontera-que-aprendimos

7 Cruz, Teddy. (2013). “How architectural innovations migrate across borders”, TED Talk, uploaded by Ted Global, available at: www.ted. com/talks/teddy_cruz_how_architectural_innovations_migrate_across_ borders

20 Sassen, Saskia (1994), “The Informal Economy: Between New Developments and Old Regulations”, The Yale Law Journal, New Haven, 103:8, 2289-2304

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21 UNCHR, (2022). “Venezuela Situation”, available at: www.unhcr.org/enus/venezuela-emergency.html UNCHR, (2022), “UNCHR Venezuela Quarterly Report Jan-Mar 2022”

9 Cruz, Teddy; and Forman, Fonna. (2019). Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, available at: estudioteddycruz.com Cruz, Teddy; and Forman, Fonna. (2020). “Unwalling Citizenship” in E-Flux, available at: www.e-flux.com/architecture/at-theborder/358908/unwalling-citizenship/

22 Venezuela Investigative Unit, (2018). “Colombia and Venezuela, Criminal Siamese Twins” in Inshight Crime, available at: insightcrime.org/ investigations/colombia-venezuela-criminal-siamese-twins/

10 Devlin, Ryan (2018). “Asking ‘Third World questions’ of First World informality: Using Southern theory to parse needs from desires in an analysis of informal urbanism of the global North” , Planning Theory, 17:4, pp. 568-587 11 Editora Norte Santander, (2021). “Denuncian captura masiva de integrantes de Sintragasolina en Norte de Santander” in Colombia Informa, available at: www.colombiainforma.info/denuncian-capturamasiva-de-integrantes-de-sintragasolina-en-norte-de-santander/ 12 EFE, (2019). “La Parada, el punto cero de la diáspora venezolana”, available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGzWNd0Zag 13 La Opinion, (2015). “Pimpineros están cerca de la solución para su reconversión laboral”, available at: www.laopinion.com.co/cucuta/

23 Villalba, Javier, (2018). “New Criminal Group Runs Fuel Smuggling at Colombia-Venezuela Border” in Insight Crime, available at: insightcrime. org/news/analysis/new-criminal-group-runs-fuel-smuggling-colombiavenezuela-border/