Questioning the notion of transit migration, the authors analyze mobility and immobility among Central American migrants within the transnational space comprised of Central American countries, Mexico, and the US. They examine how mobility and immobility are shaped by the experiences of precarity in specific places, such as international borders, vertical borders, and humanitarian places. The book vividly illustrates various techniques migrants employ to counteract the paralyzing effects of precarity on mobility, while situating the analysis of migrants' precarity within the context of the US biopolitics of citizenship and the corresponding migration control policies and practices in the US and Mexico. At the same time, it scrutinizes the impact on migrants' precarity and mobility of three types of actors within the migration industry: those who facilitate the movement, those who prey on migrants, and those who assist them. Based on migrants' narratives, collected in five different locations in Mexico, the volume provides an insightful, analytically rigorous and moving depiction of migrants' tangled, dangerous, and uncertain journeys.
| Series Editors' Foreword |
|
vi | |
| Acknowledgements |
|
viii | |
|
|
|
ix | |
|
1 From Transit to Mobility: Characteristics and Concepts |
|
|
1 | (27) |
|
2 The Context of Precarity: Actors and Spaces |
|
|
28 | (22) |
|
3 Trajectories of Precarity and Mobility: Places and Actors |
|
|
50 | (22) |
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4 Techniques of the Self in the Face of Precarity |
|
|
72 | (17) |
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5 Towards Dignity and Security |
|
|
89 | (7) |
| Appendix: The List of Migrants Interviewed in This Study, by Place of Origin, Age, and Gender |
|
96 | (2) |
| References |
|
98 | (19) |
| Index |
|
117 | |
Tanya Basok is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology at the University of Windsor, Canada. Her research focuses principally on migration, citizenship, and migrant rights.
Daničle Bélanger is Professor at the Département de Géographie at the Université Laval, Canada. Her research focuses on international migration within Asia and the Americas.
Martha Luz Rojas Wiesner is Professor at the Departamento de Sociedad y Cultura at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Mexico. Her research focuses on international female migration from Central America to Mexico.
Guillermo Candiz is Researcher at the Département de Géographie at the Université Laval, Canada. His research interests include development studies, migration, and migrants' mobility.
