Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T05:58:45.937Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No Safe Space: Neoliberalism and the Production of Violence in the Lives of Central American Migrants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2019

Linda Alvarez Open the ORCID record for Linda Alvarez [Opens in a new window]
Linda Alvarez*
Affiliation:
California State University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Linda Alvarez, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St., NorthridgeCA91330. E-mail: linda.alvarez@csun.edu
Get access

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which neoliberal policies enacted by elites across the Northern Triangle have led to increased violence in Central America, a lived experience that continues as individuals migrate to Mexico and the United States. In this work, I examine how neoliberal polices in the region have created limited economic opportunities and means of subsistence for the poor in Central America, as well as the rise of extra-legal actors and criminal enterprises. Together these conditions leave Central Americans with no choice but to migrate north. This paper then explores the violence migrants experience as they move through Mexico. In this stage of the journey, migrant bodies are objectified and then commodified as cheap labor for the global market as well as local economies of violence. Lastly, I discuss the multiple zones of violence that migrants experience at Mexico's border with the United States. This project relies on in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n = 99) with Central American migrants over the course of 4 years (2014–18). Ultimately, I find that for Central American migrants, violence can be a seemingly inescapable reality as neoliberal forces maintain and normalize violence in order to preserve an established social order at the expense of these migrants.

Keywords

neoliberalismmigrationviolenceCentral America
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 4 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © The Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aguayo, Sergio, and Fagen, Patricia Weiss. 1988. Central Americans in Mexico and the United States, Washington, DC: Hemispheric Migration Project and CIPRA at Georgetown UniversityGoogle Scholar
Altman, Claire E., Gorman, Bridget K., Chávez, Sergio, Ramos, Federico, and Fernández, Isaac. 2018. “The Mental Well-Being of Central American Transmigrant Men in Mexico.” Global Public Health 13(4): 383–99.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne. 2001. “Outlines of a Topography of Cruelty: Citizenship and Civility in the Era of Global Violence.” Constellations (oxford, England) 8(1): 15–29.10.1080/17441692.2016.1177568CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnett, Thomas P. M. 2004. The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Bleich, Erik, and Pekkanen, Robert. 2013. How to report interview data. Interview research in political science 1: 84–105.Google Scholar
Bonner, Raymond. 1984. Weakness and Deceit: US Policy and El Salvador. New York: OR Books.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Masculine Domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loïc. 2004. “Symbolic Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace, eds. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Bourgois, Phillippe I.. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 272–74.Google Scholar
Brenner, Neil, and Theodore, Nik. 2002. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’.” Antipode 34(3): 349–79.10.1111/1467-8330.00246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulmer-Thomas, Victor, ed. 1996. The New Economic Model in Latin America and its Impact on Income Distribution and Poverty. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Burrell, Jennifer. 2010. In and Out of Rights: Security, Migration, and Human Rights Talk in Postwar Guatemala. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 15(1): 90–115.Google Scholar
Cantor, David. 2016. “As Deadly as Armed Conflict? Gang Violence and Forced Displacement in the Northern Triangle of Central America.” Agenda International 23(34): 77–97.10.1007/978-1-349-24520-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castles, Stephen, and Miller, Mark J.. 2003. The Age of Migration. New York: Guilford Press.10.18800/agenda.201601.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chacón, Justin Akers, and Davis, Mike. 2018. No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-Mexico Border. Chicago: Haymarket Books.Google Scholar
Coatsworth, John H. 1994. Central America and the United States: The Clients and the Colossus. New York: Twayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan Bibler. 2003. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants' Struggle for US Residency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
De Genova, Nicholas. 2018. “Rebordering “the People” Notes on Theorizing Populism.” South Atlantic Quarterly 117(2): 357–74.Google Scholar
De Genova, Nicholas, and Peutz, Nathali, eds. 2010. The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.1215/00382876-4374878CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De León, Jason. 2015. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland: University of California Press.10.1215/9780822391340CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimmitt Gnam, A. L. 2013. “Mexico's Missed Opportunities to Protect Irregular Women Transmigrants: Applying A Gender Lens to Migration Law Reform.” Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal 22: 713.Google Scholar
Fagen, Patricia W. 1984. Refugees and Displaced Persons in Central America. Washington, D.C: Report of the Refugee Policy Group.Google Scholar
Fagen, Patricia W., and Aguayo, Sergio. 1986. Fleeing the Maelstrom: Central American Refugees (No. 10). Central American and Caribbean Program, School of Advanced International Studies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul. 2004. Pathologies of Power: Human Rights and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Farmer, Paul. 1996. “On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below.” Daedalus 125(1): 261–83.Google Scholar
Fregoso, Rosa-Linda, and Bejarano, Cynthia, eds. 2010. Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Galtung, Johan. 1990. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27(3): 291–305.Google Scholar
Galtung, J. 1969. Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3):167–191.10.1215/9780822392644CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gammage, Sarah. 2006. “Exporting People and Recruiting Remittances: A Development Strategy for El Salvador?.” Latin American Perspectives 33(6): 75–100.10.1177/0094582X06294112CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Maria C. (2006). Seeking Refuge: Central American Migration to Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Giroux, Henry A., and Evans, Brad. 2015. Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers.Google Scholar
Godoy, Angelina S. 2002. “Lynchings and the Democratization of Terror in Postwar Guatemala: Implications for Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 24(3): 640–61.10.1353/hrq.2002.0035CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Daniel M. 2010. Toward a Critical Anthropology of Security. Current Anthropology 51(4): 487–517.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, Linda. 2011. “The Nobodies: Neoliberalism, Violence, and Migration.” Medical Anthropology 30(4): 366–85.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Nora, and Chinchilla, Norma Stoltz. 1991. Central American migration: A framework for analysis. Latin American Research Review 26(1): 75–110.10.1525/tran.1999.8.1-2.77CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Nora, and Stoltz Chinchilla, Norma. 2001. Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hammar, Lawrence. 1999. “Caught Between Structure and Agency: The Gender of Violence and Prostitution in Papua New Guinea.” Transforming Anthropology 8(1–2): 77–96.Google Scholar
Handcock, Mark S, and Gile, Krista J.. 2011. Comment: On the concept of snowball sampling. Sociological Methodology 41(1): 367–371.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy. 2006. “Globalization and Primitive Accumulation: The Contributions of David Harvey's Dialectical Marxism.” In David Harvey: A Critical Reader, eds. Castree, N., and Gregory, D.. Malden, MA: Blackwell, p. 177.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity. New Jersey: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hershberg, Eric, and Rosen, Fred, eds. 2006. Latin America After Neoliberalism: Turning the Tide in the 21st Century?. New York: The New Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hilgers, Tina, and Macdonald, Laura, eds. 2017. Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean: Subnational Structures, Institutions, and Clientelistic Networks. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holmes, Seth. 2013. Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies: Migrant Farm Workers in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Infante, César, Idrovo, Alvaro J., Sánchez-Domínguez, Mario S., Vinhas, Stéphane, and González-Vázquez, Tonatiuh. 2012. “Violence Committed Against Migrants in Transit: Experiences on the Northern Mexican Border.” Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 14(3): 449–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jessop, Bob. 2005. “Fordism and Post-Fordism: A Critical Reformulation.” In Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development, eds. Scott, Allen J., and Storper, Michael. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keller, Allen, Joscelyne, Amy, Granski, Megan, and Rosenfeld, Barry. 2017. “Pre-Migration Trauma Exposure and Mental Health Functioning Among Central American Migrants Arriving at the US Border.” PLoS ONE 12(1): e0168692.Google Scholar
Koonings, Kees, and Krujit, Dirk, eds. 1999. Societies of Fear: The Legacy of Civil War, Violence and Terror in Latin America. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
LaFeber, Walter. 1993. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LagardeY De Los Rios, Marcela Y De Los Rios, Marcela. 2010. “Preface, Feminist Keys for Understanding Feminicide: Theoretical, Political and Legal Construction.” In Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas, eds. Fregoso, Rosa-Linda, and Bejarano, Cynthia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, xvi.Google Scholar
Laurell, Asa Cristina. 2015. “Three Decades of Neoliberalism in Mexico: The Destruction of Society.” International Journal of Health Services 45(2): 246–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipietz, Alain. 1987. Mirages and Miracles: The Crisis in Global Fordism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lipietz, Alain. 1997. “The Post-Fordist World: Labour Relations, International Hierarchy and Global Ecology.” Review of International Political Economy 4(1): 1–41.Google Scholar
Loucky, James, and Moors, Marilyn, eds. 2000. The Maya Diaspora: Guatemalan Roots, New American Lives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
O'Dogherty Madrazo, Laura. 1989. Central Americans in Mexico City, Uprooted and Silenced. Washington D.C.: Hemispheric Migration Project Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Manz, Beatriz. 1988. Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in Guatemala. Albany: State University of New York Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martínez, Oscar. 2016. A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Mbembé, J.-A., and Meintjes, Libby. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11–40.Google Scholar
McMichael, Philip. 2011. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia. 2000. Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia, and Abrego, Leisy. 2012. “Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants. American Journal of Sociology 117(5): 1380–421.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia, and Walsh, Shannon D.. 2017. “The Architecture of Feminicide: The State, Inequalities, and Everyday Gender Violence in Honduras.” Latin American Research Review 52(2): 221–40.Google Scholar
Meza, Victor. 2005. Honduras: Migración, Politica y Seguridad. Tegucigalpa: CEDOH.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montes, Segundo, and Vásquez Garcia, García. 1988. Salvadoran Migration to the United States: An Exploratory Study. Washington D.C.: Hemispheric Migration Project, Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance, Georgetown University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogren, Cassandra. 2007. “Migration and Human Rights on the Mexico Guatemala Border.” International Migration 45(4): 203–43.Google Scholar
O'Neill, Kevin L. and Thomas, Kendron, eds. 2011. Securing the City: Neoliberalism, Space, and Insecurity in Postwar Guatemala. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Orozco, Manuel. 2002. “Globalization and Migration: The Impact of Family Remittances in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society 44(2): 41–66.Google Scholar
Paley, Dawn. 2014. Drug War Capitalism. Chico, CA: AK Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinheiro, Paulo Sergio. 1996. Democracies Without Citizenship. NACLA Report on the Americas 30(2): 17–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, Jamie. 2001. “Neoliberalizing States: Thin Policies/Hard Outcomes.” Progress in Human Geography 25(3): 445–55.Google Scholar
Peck, Jamie, and Tickell, Adam. 2002. “Neoliberalizing Space.” Antipode 34(3): 380–404.Google Scholar
Peterson, Linda. 1986. Central American Migration: Past and Present (No. 25). Washington D.C.: Center for International Research, US Bureau of the Census.Google Scholar
Polayni, Karl. 1944. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Reguillo, Rossana. 2011. “The Narco-Machine and the Work of Violence: Notes Toward Its Decodification.” E-misférica 8(2). Available at: http://hemi.nyu.edu/hemi/en/e-misferica-82/reguilloGoogle Scholar
Robinson, William I. 2003. Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change and Globalization. London: Verso.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Jose Luis. 2011. “Remittances in Central America: Whose Money is it Anyway?.” Journal of World-Systems Research 17(2): 463–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandoval Garcia, Carlos. 2007. El Mito Roto. Inmigracíon y Emigracíon en Costa Rica. San José: Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica.Google Scholar
Sandoval-García, Carlos. 2017. Exclusion and Forced Migration in Central America: No More Walls. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Scott, Allen, and Storper, Michael, eds. 2005. Pathways to Industrialization and Regional Development. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sharp, Lesley. 2000. “The Commodification of the Body and Its Parts.” Annual Review of Anthropology 29(1): 287–328.Google Scholar
Solís González, Jose Luis. 2013. “Neoliberalismo y Crimen Organizado en México: El Surgimiento del Estado Narco.” Frontera Norte 25(50): 7–34.Google Scholar
Sprague, Joey. 2016. Feminist Methodologies for Critical Researchers: Bridging Differences. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.10.4324/9781315730660CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Springer, Simon. 2016. “The Violence of Neoliberalism.” In Handbook of Neoliberalism. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Standing, Guy. 1999. “Global Feminization Through Flexible Labor: A Theme Revisited.” World Development 27(3): 583–602.Google Scholar
Tazzioli, M, Garelli, G., and De Genova, N.. 2018. “Autonomy of Asylum? The Autonomy of Migration Undoing the Refugee Crisis Script.” South Atlantic Quarterly 117(2): 239–65.Google Scholar
Torres, M. Gabriela. 2018. “State Violence.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Valencia, Sayak. 2018. Gore Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Varsanyi, Monica. 2008. “Rescaling the “Alien,” Rescaling Personhood: Neoliberalism, Immigration, and the State.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98(4): 877–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vega, Lilliam. 2012. Salvadoreños en Belice. Estudios Centroamericanos 731: 539–565.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vega, William A., Kolody, B. Bohdan, and Valle, Juan Ramon. 1987. “Migration and Mental Health: An Empirical Test of Depression Risk Factors Among Immigrant Mexican Women.” International Migration Review 21(3): 512–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogt, Wendy A. 2013. “Crossing Mexico: Structural Violence and the Commodification of Undocumented Central American Migrants.” American Ethnologist 40(4): 764–80.10.1215/9780822392804CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zilberg, Elana. 2011. Space of Detention: The Making of a Transnational Gang Crisis Between Los Angeles and San Salvador. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar