Calibrating Comfort in the Care-Control nexus of Humanitarian Borderwork

To the reviewers,
Thank you both for your insightful feedback and your points to strengthen this article. Please see the list of changes available. Many thanks and kind regards.

Reviewer 1:
The article presents a clear-cut opposition between those who provide aid and those who receive it. While it is established that military personnel and humanitarian workers have greater access to comfort compared to ‘beneficiaries’, is there a difference in terms of the narrative surrounding the (non-)provision of comfort to Venezuelan migrants? What are the implication in terms of claims (if any) and practices on the ground (of migrants as well as humanitarian actors)?
- I have included a note that demonstrates the differing views of humanitarian workers and the state-military approach, particularly with regards to the installation of sails in the other shelter. On page 14, I write: 'This would result in them relying on humanitarian shelter and staying long-term; though this did not seem to concern the aid workers themselves, who attempted to provide extra protection but were unable to overcome the limits set by the Operation Welcome taskforce'… More research is needed to ground claims of comparable comfort from the perspective of migrants. I have noted this in the limitations (see point 3).

The article primarily relies on ethnographic observations (the maps drawn by the author are particularly useful), but the methodology also references interviews. The paper would perhaps benefit from including quotes from these mentioned interviews. The voice of migrants and humanitarian actors does not currently emerge from the paper.
- I have included a few more direct quotes from interviews as well as notes from conversations. See for example:
- Page 9: …in Brazil now we don't consider this as a camp because they are not supposed to stay there. It's a temporary shelter […] we have this shelter, we don't call it a shelter because there is no structure as a shelter. We call it like a dorm, temporary dorm, that is BV-8. (Interview with a UNHCR staff member November 2019).
- Page 12: As one Brazilian humanitarian staff member explained: ‘the shelters are made for the migrants to stay just for a while, that also means the structure and the rules are very coercive. The shelters do not help to make some autonomy and [empowerment] for these families’ (October 2021).
- Page 13: When I visited, it was during the day while the dormitory was closed. I walked alongside two Venezuelan migrants, one volunteer and one staff member working for different aid agencies. They suggested that it was better that I visited when the dormitory was closed, as once it opened it would quickly become very loud and overcrowded, and aid workers were sometimes met with verbal harassment.

The conclusions could be enriched by discussing the research limitations and outlining the paper's contribution to existing literature on humanitarian borderwork and implications of the findings for future studies.
- I have now revised the conclusion to include discussion on limitations, my contribution, and implications for future work. Please see for example on page 14: This article has contributed to the discussion on humanitarian infrastructure as a mechanism of governance and the operation of both care and control […] However, a key limitation of this work was the inability to include the perspectives of people who were living without shelter and were accessing these spaces of care. While I have focused on the spatial and political condition of comfort, future research would benefit from investigating affective and emotional experiences within these spaces.
Comfort, or its absence, plays a significant role in humanitarian spaces that contain, control, and securitize everyday ‘risky’ mobilities. This has implications for future research beyond the context analyzed here, whereby we may examine diverse state reception systems and the production of (dis)comfort in spaces where migrants are ‘welcomed’. Spatialities that subject migrants and refugees to such discomfort may prompt scholars, designers, and practitioners to think more closely about how comfort may be weaponized as a mechanism of mobility governance. This could be useful in rethinking more inclusive strategies for management and planning.

Reviewer 2:
- While it was not requested, I have added a note in the limitations of this paper that recognise the need to explore affective/emotional understandings of comfort. I believe this needs to be done with the direct input of those making use of these spaces. On page 14 I write: While I have focused on the spatial and political condition of comfort, future research would benefit from investigating affective and emotional experiences within these spaces.