Interrogating Latinx Belonging in the Tijuana-San Diego Border Region

• In Event: Latina/o Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 1: Migration, Place, and Latinx Belonging

Abstract

Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews, this paper develops the concept of “ambiente” to analyze the Latinx transborder commuters’ belonging in the San Diego-Tijuana border region. Building on my interlocutors’ use of the term, I define an “ambiente” as the emergent, general feel of a place as an individual experiences it. I argue that social forces shape an “ambiente,” including social structures, institutions, discourses, and power relations, that are particular to a place. Moreover, these social forces intersect with an individual’s memories, social positionality, and ongoing experiences of places, which, in turn, condition their “place-belongingness.” Building on but departing from Antonsich (2010), “place-belongingness” refers to one’s ability to feel a place as “home,” wherein a place’s “ability” to foment a sense of belonging facilitates this “hominess.” Thus, the concept of “ambiente” opens an analytic avenue to examine some of the constitutive elements of place-belonging, and Latinx belonging particularly, which are not necessarily “active” but form the basis or “soil” in which belonging may flourish or wither and, therefore, continuously change. In other words, in contrast to research on Latinx belonging that importantly centers social actors’ agencies in producing place-belongingness (Bickham Mendez and Deeb-Sossa 2022), I highlight other ways in which place-belongingness is negotiated but not actively sought.

Author

• Miguel Arturo Avalos, Kenyon College