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The State and Mobile People at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Journal article published in 2010 by Josiah Heyman
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Question mark in circle
Preprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Postprint: policy unknown
Question mark in circle
Published version: policy unknown

Abstract

A pdf is available by request to jmheyman@utep.edu . The key theoretical concept of this chapter is a reexamination of risk theory, arguing that risk is distributed unequally (already understood) but also that risk is a discursive and material label applied unequally to some people (working class migrants) and not others (privileged populations). After that theoretical review, the chapter provides an overview of border enforcement throughout the settled region of the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border (patrolling, stops, checkpoints, etc.). It argues that enforcement is unequal, leaving some geographic sites and people relatively free of risk of enforcement and its consequences, and concentrating enforcement on other sites and people, creating risk in their lives (material risk created because of the "risky people" discourse). It then uses a Marxist feminist focus on work and reproduction to analyze specifically how daily mobility is crucial to working class lives, and how unequal law enforcement aimed at mobility of settled migrants/workers results in specific exploitation and reproduction-damaging effects, linking migration enforcement to class processes in clear and specific ways. Synthesizes key concepts of mobility, class, state, and risk.