Disposable women across borders: Migration as agency and violence

• In Event: Neoliberalismo, necropolítica y formas extremas de despojo en América Latina: una mirada feminista.

Abstract

Under contemporary global capitalism, neoliberalism causes violence against racialized, gendered segments of Central America, making it acceptable for societies to block their survival because they are deemed unworthy. Women and mothers who have been excluded from educational and occupational opportunities, are limited to work in private homes, informal sectors, or the maquila industry. When it proves impossible to provide for their families despite full time employment created through neoliberal policies, many transgress gendered boundaries to find work abroad. This paper explores how migration, while it is a form of agency and an act of resistance, involves further violence against these women. Based on interviews with migrant mothers along with a survey of extant literature, I will discuss how Central American migrant women “consent” by accepting the likely possibilities of embodied violence—including rape and loss of limbs to get to the United States. Some are murdered; others are sold into prostitution. Those who make it to their final destination are at the mercy of employers in retail, domestic work, housekeeping, or the garment industry, where they are exploited. Throughout the process, in their origin, transit, and destination states, the state acts in absentia—through inaction, incapacity, or indifference– to protect their rights. The social death, justified at times by a general sense of unworthiness (established through repetitive representations or accomplished through law and the “illegalization” of migrants), makes these women always potential targets of violence as they are always seen and treated as disposable.

Author

• Leisy J Abrego, University of California/Los Angeles