Solis analyses the different ways of crossing the border and its effects on bordering processes between Mexico and the United States. She considers the Trump area as strengthening previous restrictive border polices within a network territory characterized by circularity, virtuality, instability and conflict operating under a global context, which is not about the end of the states but the dispute over hegemonic power, where the Nation-State becomes a strategic actor with new functions. Globalization entails then the “disassembly” of the nation states in territory, authority and rights, always within a capitalist logic that privileges capital. The chapter´s main idea is that contemporary multi-territoriality is recreated by different populations in this context, generating a heterogeneous and complex landscape that allows the border to be thought of as a mobile and flexible device, which is built on territorial violence but also by resistance and by confluence. There are many types of border crossing practices and experiences along the US-Mexico border, especially among residents in the region, which illustrate the complex nature of a border as both a point of contact and exchange as well as barrier and exclusion. Further, these varied practices and experiences lead to a wide range of subjective understandings and views of the border among the diverse types of crossers and residents. This heterogeneity of border crossing practices and subjectivities is very important to consider and is a good counter to both the common political view of the border as a security problem and crossers as threats as well as to the typical economic view of the border as zone of international trade and commercial exchange. Much of the public and many policy makers outside the region fail to keep in mind this vast volume of many different types of crossers and crossings (the overwhelming majority of which are legal), but instead sees them as some sort of threat through a lens of illegality.
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Front Matter
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PART I: THE ICONIC US-MEXICO BORDER REGION
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PART II: ON THE WAY TO THE US
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PART III: CHALLENGING MEDITERRANEAN BORDERS
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PART IV: REGIONS, PARTITIONS AND EDGES
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PART V: VIOLENCE AND CONTAINMENT: APPROACHES TO YOUTH AND GENDER
