Migrant Reinsertion in Southern Mexico after the Great Recession: Gender, “Illegality”, and Flexible Accumulation

• In Event: Neoliberalism, Flexible Accumulation and Rural Mexico: New Protagonists and Subjectivities in the Wake of the Great Recession

Abstract

The Great Recession significantly altered international migration flows in sending communities in the southern Mexican state of Puebla. Border violence and the contraction of labor markets diminished the circular flow of “illegal”, post-IRCA migrants. Upon return to Mexico, voluntarily or through deportation, individuals faced the challenge of economic, social and cultural reinsertion into areas ravaged by neoliberal policies and economic restructuring. Through sequential interviews over an 18 month period in Zapotitlán Salinas, the contradictory and often painful processes of reinsertion revealed how economic crisis manifested in the quotidian stresses and tensions in gendered subjects left virtually unprotected by the flexible accumulation regime. In this post-transnational situation, new protagonists and subjectivities emerge in the hollowed-out promises of a better life through international migration.

Author

• Alison E Lee, Universidad de las Américas Puebla