The Power Struggle along the US-Mexico Border: A Space of Dehumanization and of Assertion of Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206
Author(s):  
Mónica Socorro Romero Meza
Keyword(s):  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Human Value ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Faith Based Organizations ◽  
High Level ◽  
Normal Perception ◽  
Us Mexico Border

The article explores the power relations between the US immigration policy and the practices of faith-based organizations at the US-Mexico border through qualitative methods. It studies how high-level technologies implemented at the border reduce migrants to mere targets, stripping them out from their human value. It also analyzes the experiences of three faith-based organizations located at Tijuana and San Diego to understand how their humanitarian work changes the normal perception of the border as a space that only serves the purpose of the State. I argue that despite of the violence lived almost every day at the border-heightened by the implementation of military techniques- undocumented migrants can momentarily find moments of peace and justice.

scholarly journals The Power Struggle along the US-Mexico Border: A Space of Dehumanization and of Assertion of Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206
Author(s):  
Mónica Socorro Romero Meza
Keyword(s):  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Human Value ◽  
Peace And Justice ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Faith Based Organizations ◽  
High Level ◽  
Normal Perception ◽  
Us Mexico Border

The article explores the power relations between the US immigration policy and the practices of faith-based organizations at the US-Mexico border through qualitative methods. It studies how high-level technologies implemented at the border reduce migrants to mere targets, stripping them out from their human value. It also analyzes the experiences of three faith-based organizations located at Tijuana and San Diego to understand how their humanitarian work changes the normal perception of the border as a space that only serves the purpose of the State. I argue that despite of the violence lived almost every day at the border-heightened by the implementation of military techniques- undocumented migrants can momentarily find moments of peace and justice.

Absent and present: Biopolitics and the materiality of body counts on the US–Mexico border

2020 ◽  
pp. 135918352095939
Author(s):  
Gabriella Soto
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Border Crossings ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Vital Records ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Us Mexico Border

As the deaths of undocumented migrants expose the violence of border security policies around the globe, a complicated politics emerges between bodily death and the ways in which the migrant association of decedents (dis)appears in vital records – even as many migrants physically disappear during their border crossings. What happens between death and bureaucratic disappearance after a migrant body is discovered? How does the overwhelming material presence of migrant death, someone who dies through an unnecessary and excruciating process like drowning or dehydration during a border crossing, become not-a-migrant? This article considers these questions by exploring the materiality of body counts at the nexus of biopolitics, forensic anthropology, and material culture studies. To probe the process behind migrants’ seemingly systematized bureaucratic postmortem disappearance, this ethnographic case study of local postmortem investigations of migrant deaths at the US–Mexico border examines practices around burial or cremation and body discovery.

Border monuments: memory, counter-memory, and (b)ordering practices along the US-Mexico border

2012 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSICA AUCHTER
Keyword(s):  
Undocumented Immigrants ◽  
The State ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Border Enforcement ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Dead Bodies ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Us Mexico Border

AbstractImmigrant deaths have increased in recent years due to changes in border enforcement practices, yet less attention has been paid to the memorialisation of undocumented immigrants who die crossing the US-Mexico border. This article explores the ordering mechanisms of statecraft through an examination of how the dead bodies of undocumented migrants pose a resistance to these mechanisms. I first lay out my conception of statecraft and the bordering practices involved in this specific context, then address the memorialisation of undocumented immigrants who lost their lives crossing the border. The article embarks on a journey through anonymous desert gravesites and small desert cemeteries haunted by the spectres of immigration. It explores the contestation surrounding memorialisation of death through the monument, the narratives of anonymity surrounding the memorialisation of undocumented immigrants, and the counter-memory discourses that emerge in an effort to rewrite the meaning of these migrant deaths. These counter-memorial discourses, I argue, posit desert border monuments as a threat to statecraft because they cannot be situated within the (b)ordering mechanisms of the state.

California

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Social Cartography ◽  
Family Network ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Police Surveillance ◽  
Us Mexico Border

I utilize my situated position as anthropologist, academician, and citizen to argue not only that we should “think” California, but also that we should “rethink” our state—both its condition and its social cartography. To be clear, I see all my research and endeavors—my research on the US/Mexico border; my time among the markets and entrepreneurs I have worked and lived with; my focus on those places in which I was raised: Lemon Grove, Logan Heights; the family network and my community ethnographic work—as personal. I am in this academic game and the telling of our story because it is personal. When Lemon Grove was segregated, it was about my family; when Logan Heights was split by the construction of Interstate 5 and threatened by police surveillance, it was about our community; when the border was sanctioned and militarized it again was about the communities of which I am a part. A rethinking California is rooted in the experience of living California, of knowing and feeling the condition and the struggles we are experiencing and the crises we have gone through. We need to rethink California, especially the current failure of the state. This too is ultimately personal, because it affects each and every one of us, especially those historically unrepresented folks who have endured over the decades.

scholarly journals Reinforcing and contesting neoliberal citizenship: Legal advocates and the asylum interview at the US–Mexico border

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Riva ◽  
Erin Routon
Keyword(s):  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
The State ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Us Mexico Border

Abstract This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice—on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.

scholarly journals Substance Use and Cumulative Exposure to American Society: Findings From Both Sides of the US–Mexico Border Region

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guilherme Borges ◽  
Cheryl J. Cherpitel ◽  
Ricardo Orozco ◽  
Sarah E. Zemore ◽  
Lynn Wallisch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Cumulative Exposure ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
American Society ◽  
Us Mexico Border

Intergenerational Spanish transmission in El Paso, Texas

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Velázquez
Keyword(s):  
El Paso ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Us ◽  
Interethnic Contact ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Benefits And Costs ◽  
Us Mexico Border ◽  
At Home

This study examines the beliefs held by a group of adult Spanish-English bilinguals from El Paso, Texas regarding the vitality of Spanish in their community and the ways in which their own experience of being bilingual on the US-Mexico border has influenced their perceptions of the benefits and costs of fostering Spanish development in their children. Results show that parents’ positive attitudes toward Spanish did not translate into the investment of time and resources to foster Spanish development in their children nor, ultimately, into the use of Spanish by their children. Households where the mother perceived herself as having an active role in her children’s linguistic development and where she perceived both Spanish and a bilingual/biethnic identity as desirable for her children’s future were also households where children were expected to speak Spanish at home and where more opportunities for linguistic development were present. The author argues that these beliefs must be understood as a consequence of the underlying tensions present in the community, where intense linguistic and interethnic contact takes place every day.

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