State/Transborder Justice: Mam and Akateco Women Seeking Asylum in the U.S. in the Context of Transborder (Guatemala, Mexico, U.S.) Gendered Violence

• In Event: Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Legal Pluralism in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala

Abstract

This paper uses a transborder intersectional analytical frame for theorizing the gendered structural violence suffered by seven indigenous Guatemalan refugee women and girls seeking asylum in the U.S. after travelling through Guatemala and Mexico. I link gendered, transnational intersectional violence to neoliberalism, U.S. securitization of the border, processes of militarization, and integrated organized crime businesses. In this transborder political economy, the bodies of female indigenous refugees are commoditized and devalued. Yet despite their suffering, the very fact of their arrival in the U.S. and determination to move forward is a creative act. The paper analyzes larger patterns of gendered violence with common elements that asylum declarations and interviews reveal. In addition, the paper emphasizes the amazing achievement of reaching the U.S., connecting with families and communities, and persisting through the asylum process and how these women and girls have reconstituted themselves in new ways that defy the structures of violence they have lived in and through—including the legal processes and structures of seeking asylum in U.S. courts.

Author

• Lynn M Stephen, University of Oregon