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My talk addresses the profoundly gendered dynamics of current militarized border surveillance and immigration enforcement practices in North America. During this period of rapid economic and political integration, regional governments have met the resulting increase in migration with denial and expanded practices of social control. By examining the migratory circuit that links Central America, Mexico and the U.S. as an integrated whole, I demonstrate how state policies have made female migrants vulnerable to unprecedented state and criminal violence.   The precipitous rise in gender violence experienced in the region since the mid- 1990s, I argue, is symptomatic of a broader pattern of punitive state policies that criminalize poverty and serve to expel insecure populations from the protected spheres of citizenship and civic life.

Free and open to the public.