This essay examines how the 2018 Nicaraguan refugee crisis in Costa Rica reveals the tension between state-centered refugee frameworks and the actual production of refuge in urban spaces. In Costa Rica, refuge operates as a socio-spatial process rather than merely a legal status. The analysis contextualizes contemporary nationalism and xenophobia within Costa Rica’s historical construction of racial exceptionalism. It also shows how marginalized urban spaces function as critical infrastructures of care and possibility for displaced Nicaraguans populations.

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