The book Forced Migration across Mexico: Organized Violence, Migrant Struggles, and Life Trajectories is out! It was edited by our ForMOVe members and research partners Ximena Alba Villalever, Stephanie Schütze, Ludger Pries, and Oscar Calderon Morillon.

First published 2024 by Routledge 

Abstract

This book analyzes the different ways in which forced migration comes together with organized violence in the Americas, focusing specifically on the migration corridor from Central America, through Mexico and on to the United States.

No matter their starting point, most South and Central American migrants to the United States must eventually traverse Mexico, and often many other borders beforehand, to reach their destination. As border controls tighten, for many migrants turning back is not a possibility, or something they desire. And so, when faced with hardening policies, migrants are often forced into situations of increased violence and precarity, without a shift in their ultimate objective. This book analyzes the complex social situations of everyday violence, and increasingly aggressive border controls, which face migrants in Mexico, as well as their exposure to a different kind of violence during their migration trajectory through the criminal actors such as gangs, cartels, and corrupt law enforcements that seek to make a profit from them. The book takes a critical approach on migration policies and on the externalization of borders by analyzing their effects on the trajectories and experiences of migrants themselves. It shows that the more migrants’ opportunities and rights during transit are hindered, the more they are at risk of exposure to these actors.

Foregrounding the voices of migrants, this book offers fresh insights into debates surrounding migration, politics, international relations, and anthropology in the Americas. 

CONTRIBUTORS and THEIR CHAPTER

1 Introduction: Approaches to organized violence and forced migration in transit through Mexico

XIMENA ALBA VILLALEVER, STEPHANIE SCHÜTZE, LUDGER PRIES, OSCAR CALDERÓN MORILLÓN

PART 1: The effects of violence and border regimes in migration processes

2 Violence and Central American migrants on Mexico’s southern border

XIMENA ALBA VILLALEVER, STEPHANIE SCHÜTZE, LUDGER PRIES, OSCAR CALDERÓN MORILLÓN

 

3 Entanglement of violences: Doubly forced migrants transiting across the Americas

SOLEDAD ÁLVAREZ VELASCO, BRUNO MIRANDA 

 

4  Externalization, violence, and migrant’s lengthy wait a Mexico’s northern border 

M. DOLORES PARIS-POMBO

 

PART II: Forced migrant’s experiences with organized violence

5 Investigating in-transit migration through Mexico within the context of violence and the pandemic

OSCAR CALDERÓN MORILLÓN, AMIR ESTRADA, MARLENE RODRÍGUEZ, AXEL ORTIZ, KARLA GUITÉRREZ, ESTEFANIA GUITÉRREZ, ARANCA CLIMACO, ANTONIO AMAT, ALAN RODRÍGUEZ, JAVIER SOLÍS, EUSEBIO MOTO

 

6 Forced migration and organized violence between the Northern Triangle of Central America and Mexico

LUDGER PRIES, BERNA ŞAFAK ZÜLFİKAR  SAVCI, XIMENA ALBA VILLALEVER, OSCAR CALDERÓN MORILLÓN

 

7 Caravanas migrantes as counter-strategies against violence and (im)mobility

XIMENA ALBA VILLALEVER, STEPHANIE SCHÜTZE

 

8 Ties along the arterial border in Mexico: Groups, institutions, and information

ALEJANDRA DÍAZ DE LEÓN, JOHN DOERING-WHITE

 

PART III: Gender and violence in migration trajectories

9 Gendered patterns of mobility and access to refugee protection of Central American migrants and refugees in Mexico

SUSANNE WILLERS

 

10 Organized violence in life histories of Central American migrant women 

MELANIE NAYELI WIESCHALLA

 

11 Waiting as violence: The interactions of gender and waiting mechanisms in the asylum systems of the United States and Mexico

PIA BERGHOFF, LYA CUÉLLAR

You can check more information about the book by clicking here.