Abstract
This article seeks to intertwine a reflection on the bureaucratic rules of immigrant documentation in Ireland with the issue of visibility or invisibility of the bodies of Brazilian immigrants. The central argument is that documentation/undocumentation regimes are responsible for a fluctuation in the visibility of immigrants to the Irish State, making them sometimes material and visible, occasionally immaterial and invisible, and often somewhere between these two poles. This fluctuation is responsible for several orders of difficulties in the lives of many immigrants, from lack of access to services to processes of slow concealment of their bodies. To realise the text, I use data from ethnographic fieldwork carried out among Brazilian immigrants in Ireland between March and June 2022 and the analysis of Irish migration legislation.
Key words:
Brazilian immigration; immigration legislation; Ireland; materiality regimes