Transnational Uprootings: Criminal Governance and Displacement in Michoacán

• In Event: The Policy and Politics of Forced Migration in the Americas

Abstract

This paper explores the paradigmatic case of Michoacán, Mexico, a model transnational state with intense social and economic interconnections with the United States suffering very high levels of violence. The paper interrogates how insecurity resulting from criminal-related activities and the concomitant reaction on the part of the Mexican state and self-defense groups has forcibly displaced thousands of people, critically reshaping the state’s migration patterns including the rise of forced displacement. Relying on interviews with migrant authorities and representatives of civil society both in Mexico and the United States, the paper traces the effect that violence is having on traditional migration patterns showing how an important number of uprooted Michoacanos have attempted to migrate north using existing transnational migration networks. The analysis thus underscores the complex intermestic dimension that human mobility is attaining in the North American Corridor.

Authors

• Andreas E. Feldmann, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Xóchitl Bada, University of Illinois at Chicago