Migration and Development? The Gendered Costs of Migration on Mexico's Rural “Left Behind”

Abstract

Governments, civil society, and policymakers assert the potential of international migration to foster development and alleviate poverty. Often such claims are rooted in macroscale geopolitical analyses of migration and development, which mask the localized, uneven, and embodied ways family members “left behind” bear the costs and subsidize the U.S./Mexico (inter)national integration project. Informed by feminist geopolitics, this article demonstrates how the left behind disproportionately bear the hidden costs of neoliberal restructuring and migration. We draw upon Mexican Migration Project (MMP) ethnosurvey data to frame the narratives of migrant family members left behind. Narratives were constructed through in‐depth interviews conducted in rural Veracruz. We conclude that in the absence of geographically specific examinations of the hidden costs associated with neoliberal development and migration it is possible that “migration for development” programs and policies may exacerbate inequities that will perpetuate migration and further weaken Mexican origin communities.

Disoriented geographies: Undoing relations, encountering limits

“…() show how left‐behind women can experience greater employment and social freedom in the absence of the male partner in spite of still being constrained by gendered expectations of conduct. More negatively, while Torres and Carte () explain how left‐behind females experience a greater burden of care for other family members in the absence of their working partners, Markey et al. () highlight relationship difficulties.…”

Refugees in the IT Sector: Young Syrians’ Economic Subjectivities and Familial Lives in Jordan

“…Here, the influence of feminist geographies has led to particularly interesting contributions. Drawing on Hyndman's proposal for a feminist geopolitics (2001), Torres and others (, 404) theorize an approach to economic change in which mobility is used as a tool for “dissecting” and countering geopolitical and geoeconomic power. This is achieved primarily by focusing on the everyday, and bridging the gap between the global and the intimate in the study of economic processes.…”

“…The findings expand upon recent geographical and development scholarship that has explored the complex intersections of neoliberal governmentality and subjectivity and the migrant and refugee condition. (Popke and Torres ; Ilcan and Rigyel ; Ehrkamp 2016; Torres and others ; Wagner ; see also Bondi ; Sukarieh ). They also offer a critical snapshot of humanitarian innovation “from below,” exploring the effects of a major policy trend on the lived experiences and family relations of young Syrians in Jordan.…”

“…Focusing on the “coding boot camp,” an emerging educational format in the field of ICT training targeting refugees, it explores how young Syrians approach a humanitarian regime in which, in the absence of full legal and social rights for refugees, the question of their material and financial subsistence is addressed through the paradigms of self‐reliance, creativity, technological innovation, and entrepreneurship. I argue that policies targeting refugees as individualized economic subjects are countered by the intimately entangled family and community relations that characterize the experience of refugeeness, both at a local and at a transnational level (Torres and others ; Kallio, ; see also Hyndman ; Nagar and others ; Mountz and Hyndman ). The findings expand upon recent geographical and development scholarship that has explored the complex intersections of neoliberal governmentality and subjectivity and the migrant and refugee condition.…”

Contemporary Refugee‐Border Dynamics and the Legacies of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference ⋆

“…Scholarship on the complex intersections of neoliberal governmentality and subjectivity as it relates to the refugee condition and migrant experience has become a focus recently (Ehrkamp ; Torres and Carte ; Culcasi ). Such work has addressed migrant struggles and victories, and the extent to which migrants have agency and the power to negotiate their situations, particularly in the face of dominant state power that has the means and (sometimes) the motivation to maintain migrant vulnerability and exploitability.…”