Description
This thesis is an exploratory, multi-sited research study of how irregular migrants navigate the Mexico-U.S. borderlands. It aims to shed light on the significance of the structural and physical actors that mold the migrant experience along this region and the impact that these actors have on the actions and decisions migrants take as they prepare for their crossing into the U.S. This study was carried out in the Northern Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, Baja California and Saltillo, Coahuila, at four (4) migrant shelters, where I undertook participant observation during 400 hours of fieldwork. I complemented this with in-depth, open-ended interviews with 18 migrants and 12 shelter workers. Based on the narratives collected, my research findings suggest that while the state-border apparatus undeniably sets the backdrop that restricts the movement of migrants, it is not a mechanical process that uniformly conditions all migrants. Rather, by contextualizing migration within the local setting, a more nuanced understanding of migrants as capable, albeit heavily constrained, sociopolitical agents who constantly interact with these actors in order to advance their movement is revealed. Accordingly, this study brought to life two key aspects of the borderlands setting – namely, the migrant shelter “ecosystem” and the border’s “geopolitical” terrain – that have seldom been explored beyond a purely structural positioning. This gives us a new lens from which we can better understand the multiplicity of stakeholders that make up this region and bring us closer to responding to what is undoubtedly one of the most complex sociopolitical conundrums of the 21st century.
