1,720,959 research outputs found
The More Things Change ... Governance and Resistance along the Mexico–Guatemala Border
Get PDFWith the politics of borders, the socio-economic divide between the United States and Mexico is evident. The geographic proximity to the U.S. makes the Mexico–Guatemala border an extension of the U.S. border enforcement regime. This article argues that the politics surrounding the U.S.–Guatemala border have not necessarily changed, because, at the core, the main objective of these border governance practices is to stop the movement of undesirable bodies (Khosravi 2011). Further, the article argues that the practices of containment force migrants to resist through their movement and seek strategies of survival. By comparing the administrations of Peña Nieto and López Obrador (AMLO) and analyzing the survival strategy of migrant “caravans” through border policy analysis and fieldwork conducted in 2014, I show that this border is a site of struggle between the state’s power and migrants’ forms of resistance. I find that border tactics are influenced by U.S. border enforcement requirements of increased militarization and policing, but also aim to restrict and control certain populations. The result is the perpetual securitization of people and the militarization of pathways. Migrants, however, also employ forms of organizing such as travelling in mass groups to achieve safe passage, thus exercising their agency through movement. The bordering practices and the forms of resistance indicate that this border is a constant site of struggle that requires further examination
Navigating Risks Across Borders: The Lived Experiences of Central American Women Migrants
Get PDFThe journey for ‘unauthorized’ migrant women from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) through Mexico dangerous and violent. In hopes of achieving safe passage to the United States (U.S.), women migrants will have to navigate borders. In this dissertation, I use the concept of borders to reveal the gendered experiences of (im)mobility. I argue that navigating borders throughout the migratory journey is not simply about experiencing the risks and vulnerabilities associated with restrictive border enforcement policies and practices implemented by the nation-state. (Im)mobility for women migrants is equally about the boundaries and/or barriers that are created by oppressive systems of subordination, such as patriarchy. These borders determine their embodied experiences, which not only affect their journey through Mexico, but their access to migration as well as their migratory options and resources.
In Article #1, I begin by exploring how disembodied border policy affects people, specifically migrant women. I show how territorial nation-state borders are governed in Mexico and how this governance can be associated with the long history of immigration control in the U.S. The border governance implemented in Mexico categorizes migrants as ‘unauthorized’. For women migrants, this subordinate category exists throughout their migration journey producing vulnerability and violence as soon as the Mexico-Guatemala boundary is crossed. This embodied illegality creates forced invisibility, further marginalizing women with respect to finding work, experiences of sexual violence and abuses by migration actors.
In Article #2, I shift my focus and explore other types of borders and/or barriers. I argue that nation-state border policies and the categories associated with these policies, such as ‘unauthorized’, ‘irregular’, ‘undocumented’, are but only one type of oppression that migrant women face in their migration. I connect the violent effects of territorial border practices with other structures of oppression, such as gender discrimination, class, race, which constitute the woman migrant subject and affect women’s embodied experiences. I frame my analysis using intersectionality and corporeal feminism to examine how gender inequality is embedded in the context of migration; how it is a motivating factor, but can also impact migratory options and resources.
Lastly in Article #3, I explore how migrant women navigate these borders and attempt to survive in this migration context. I examine how they act within limitations, constraints, exploitation and violence. Informed by feminist scholarship, I examine the concept of the ‘mobile commons’ and how it fits in this particular context. I explore how situated and relational knowledge affects the survival tactics and strategies applied by women migrants while on the journey to the U.S. I contribute to the scholarship on the mobile commons concept by showing how diverse experiences and vulnerabilities affect knowledge and, thus strategies, while on the run and how migration is not a gender-neutral experience.
Together, these three articles illustrate how gender is embedded in migration and borders and how women migrants in the NTCA and Mexico must confront these lived realities and navigate their journeys within these constraints and limitations
Rethinking the space of the migrant shelter in Mexico: humanitarian and security implications in the practices of bordering
No full textUsing a critical border, feminist perspective, this article analyzes the role of the migrant shelter as a practitioner community actively involved in the dialogue of borders and directly affected by the restrictive border policies that are implemented against ‘unauthorized’ migrants in the name of national security. Based on field research carried out in Mexico, this article examines how borders affect the shelters used by ‘transit’ migrants. Specifically, since the Programa Frontera Sur [Southern Border Plan] policy was implemented in Mexico in the summer of 2014, migrant shelters have taken a more engaged role with respect to protection and assistance for ‘unauthorized’ migrants. Within this migratory context, temporary migrant shelters are transforming into more permanent spaces. At the same time, however, despite good intentions, migrants continue to face particular challenges in migrant shelters with respect to constraining rules, which sheds light on the power relations at play in these spaces of migration
Border vigilante/Militia activity, the National Security State, and the Migrant “Threat”
No full textThe relationship between border security and immigration has always been contentious and politically divisive. Using the cases of the War on Drugs (WoD), the War on Terror (WoT) and then the Migrant “Caravan” of 2018, I show that border security and enforcement have followed a historical pattern of racialised and gendered hierarchies using the prominent language frames of crime, war and invasion to negatively construct the migrant as “other” and the national security state as protector. These policies have shaped an environment by which state violence and state-sanctioned violence of non-state actors, such as vigilante/militia groups, become an acceptable response to protect the “Homeland” from vilified “others”. Racialised and gendered hierarchies are deeply entrenched in the US national security state, have (re)produced through time and thus, historically, the system has been designed to promote an environment by which practices of exclusion and expulsion become justified by both state and non-state actors. This calls into question definitions of terrorism, which do not adequately address the violence perpetrated by government forces and/or those non-state actors who are explicitly and implicitly supported by the nation-state
The Politics of Temporary Protection Schemes: The Role of Mexico’s TVRH in Reproducing Precarity among Central American Migrants
Get PDFUsing Mexico’s Tarjeta de Visitante por Razones Humanitarias (TVRH) as a primary case study, this article examines how states can use temporary protection schemes as border security measures while claiming to provide protection. Although the TVRH offers a legal pathway and status to move within Mexico, it equally restricts certain rights due to its temporary nature. It becomes a form of differential inclusion by which the state has the right to be able to “exclude and define the limits” of a particular population but also claim inclusion on humanitarian grounds. Despite the claim of protecting migrants, the application of this regular status can essentially become a form of interdiction, which sustains the political framing of migration as ultimately a “threat” that needs to be governed. On the ground, migrants with these temporary regular statuses occupy a liminal space and live a precarious existence similar to those migrants who do not possess a legal status at all. This power imbalance exists more often as states prefer to grant a temporary immigration status, which ensures less responsibility and support that accompanies more rights and protections. Based on policy analysis and field work, the article will examine the TVRH, the processes for obtaining this legal status, and the consequences for irregular migrants.
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Usando de la Tarjeta de Visitante por Razones Humanitarias (TVRH) de México, como un estudio de caso prinicpal, este artículo examina cómo los estados pueden utilizar esquemas de protección temporal como medidas de seguridad mientras afirman brindar protección. Y aunque la TVRH ofrece una vía legal y estatus para moverse dentro de México, esto igualmente restringe ciertos derechos debido a su carácter temporal. De esta forma se convierte en una forma de inclusión diferencial mediante la cual el Estado tiene derecho a poder excluir y definir los límites de una población en particular, aunque también tenga la opción de reclamar inclusión por motivos humanitarios. A pesar de la pretensión de proteger a los migrantes, la aplicación de este estatus regular puede esencialmente convertirse en una forma de interdicción, que sostiene el encuadre político de la migración como una “amenaza” que, en última instancia, necesita ser controlada. Sobre el terreno, los migrantes con este regular estatus temporal pueden ocupar un espacio liminal y vivir una existencia precaria similar a los migrantes que no poseen ningún estatus legal. Este desequilibrio de poder existe con mayor frecuencia, ya que los estados prefieren otorgar un estatus migratorio temporal, lo que garantiza menos responsabilidad y compromiso con los derechos que acompañan la debida protección. Basado en la política, el análisis y el trabajo de campo, el artículo examina el TVRH, los procesos para la obtención de este estatus legal y las consecuencias para los migrantes irregulares
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The Categorized and Invisible: The Effects of the ‘Border’ on Women Migrant Transit Flows in Mexico
Get PDFIn an increasingly globalized world, border control is continuously changing. Nation-states grapple with ‘migration management’ and maintain secure borders against ‘illegal’ flows. In Mexico, borders are elusive; internal and external security is blurred, and policies create legal categories of people whether it is a ‘trusted’ tourist or an ‘unauthorized’ migrant. For the ‘unauthorized’ Central American woman migrant trying to achieve safe passage to the United States (U.S.), the ‘border’ is no longer only a physical line to be crossed but a category placed on an individual body, which exists throughout her migration journey producing vulnerability as soon as the Mexico−Guatemala boundary is crossed. Based on policy analysis and fieldwork, this article argues that rather than protecting ‘unauthorized’ migrants, which the Mexican government narrative claims to do, border policies imposed by the state legally categorize female bodies in clandestine terms and construct violent relationships. This embodied illegality creates forced invisibility, further marginalizing women with respect to finding work, and experiences of sexual violence and abuses by migration actors. The analysis focuses on three areas: the changing definition of ‘borders’; the effects of categorization and multiple vulnerabilities on Central American women; and the dangers caused by forced invisibility
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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