Abstract
This paper addresses the intended and unintended politicization of bodies of undocumented migrants beyond their death. Border activists in Arizona, California, and Texas have engaged in marches, projections, and collective acts of mourning to publicize the issue of undocumented migrants dying in their attempt to cross the desert. Nienass and Délano argue that these politics of mourning are stagings of dissensus in Jacques Ranciere’s sense, as they place these border deaths in the context of state violence and constitute a challenge to existing frames within which we sense someone as publically grievable.
This research draws from fieldwork and interviews conducted in various cities and sites along the US-Mexico border in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas between April and June 2013 with funding from The New School Provost’s Office Research Cluster Grant. We are grateful for comments from participants at the symposium Political Abilities held in Innsbruck between 27 and 29 March 2014 and at the workshop ‘Memory, Migration and Materiality’, hosted by The New School between 1 and 3 May 2014. An extended version of this chapter appeared in Social Research Vol. 83, No. 2 in summer 2016. We thank Katy Brandes, Tomás Castelazo, Camilo Godoy, and Saul Soto for permissions to use their photos.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Andreas, P. (2000). Border games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico divide. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Arpaio, J. (2013, August 15). Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office News Release, [Online]. Available: http://www.mcso.org/MultiMedia/PressRelease/Sheriff%20Arpaio%27s%20Desert%20Warning.pdf. Accessed 7 Nov 2014.
Athanasiou, A. (2005). Reflections on the politics of mourning: Feminist ethics and politics in the age of empire. Historein, 5, 40–57.
Auchter, J. (2014). The politics of haunting and memory in international relations. Oxon: Routledge.
Binational Migration Institute. (2013). A continued humanitarian crisis at the border: Undocumented border crosser deaths recorded by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990–2012, [Online]. Available: http://bmi.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/border_deaths_final_web.pdf. Accessed 7 Nov 2014.
Booth, W. J. (2011). From this far place: On justice and absence. American Political Science Review, 105(4), 750–764.
Brown, W. (2010). Walled states, waning sovereignty. Brooklyn: Zone Books.
Butler, J. (2003). Violence, mourning, politics. Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 4(1), 9–37.
Butler, J. (2006). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London/New York: Verso.
Butler, J. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable? London/New York: Verso.
Butler, J., & Athanasiou, A. (2013). Dispossession: The performative in the political. Cambridge/Malden: Polity Press.
Coalición de Derechos Humanos. (2014). The migrant trail: We walk for life, [Online]. Available: http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/2012/05/migrant-trail-2012/. Accessed 7 Nov 2014.
Cornelius, W. A. (2001). Death at the border: Efficacy and unintended consequences of U.S. Immigration control policy. Population and Development Review, 27(4), 661–685.
De Genova, N. (2013). Spectacles of migrant ‘illegality’: The scene of exclusion, the obscene of inclusion. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(7), 1180–1198.
Doss, E. (2010). Memorial Mania: Public feeling in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eng, D. L., & Kazanjian, D. (2003). Introduction: Mourning remains. In D. L. Eng & D. Kazanjian (Eds.), Loss: The politics of mourning. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended: Lectures at the Collège de France (1975–1976). New York: Picador.
Jiménez, M. (2009). Humanitarian crisis: Migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border. San Diego/Mexico City: American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties/Mexico’s National Commission of Human Rights.
Lovato, R. (2013, July 25). Breathing in our dead and the spirit of immigration reform. The Huffington Post.
Lucaites, J. L. (2012). Afterword: Border optics. In R. D. DeChaine (Ed.), Border rhetorics: Citizenship and identity on the US-Mexico Border. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Magaña, R. (2011). Dead bodies: The deadly display of Mexican border politics. In F. E. Mascia-Lees (Ed.), A companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Martínez, D., Reineke, R., Rubio-Goldsmith, R., & Parks, B. (2014). Structural violence and migrant deaths in Southern Arizona: Data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990–2013. Journal of Migration and Human Security, 2(4), 257–286.
May, T. (2008). The political thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating equality. University Park: Penn State University Press.
May, T. (2009). There are no queers – Jacques Rancière and post-identity politics. Borderlands, 8(2), 1–17.
Michalowski, R. (2007). Border militarization and migrant suffering: A case of transnational social injury. Social Justice, 34(2), 62–76.
Murray, S. J. (2006). Thanatopolitics: On the use of death for mobilizing political life. Polygraph, 18, 191–215.
Murray, S. J. (2008, June). Thanatopolitics: Reading in Agamben a rejoinder to biopolitical life. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 5(2), 203–207.
Nevins, J. (2002). Operation gatekeeper: The rise of the ‘illegal Alien’ and the making of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. New York: Routledge.
Nevins, J. (2003). Thinking out of bounds: A critical analysis of academic and human rights writings on migrant deaths in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region. Migraciones Internacionales, 2(2), 171–190.
Rancière, J. (1999). Dis-agreement: Politics and philosophy. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Rancière, J. (2010). Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. London/New York: Continuum.
Reineke, R., & Martínez, D. (2014). Migrant deaths in the Americas (United States and Mexico). In T. Brian & F. Laczko (Eds.), Fatal journeys: Tracking lives lost during migration. International Organization for Migration.
The Migrant Trail, [Online]. Available: http://azmigranttrail.com/testimonies/. Accessed 7 Nov 2014.
United States Border Patrol. (1994). Border patrol strategic plan 1994 and beyond, [Online]. Available: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/355856-border-patrol-strategic-plan-1994-and-beyond.html. Accessed 7 Nov 2014.
Verdery, K. (2000). The political lives of dead bodies: Reburial and postsocialist change. New York: Columbia University Press.
Verdery, K. (2004). Dead bodies animate the study of politics. In A. C. G. M. Robben (Ed.), Death, mourning, and burial: A cross-cultural reader. Malden/Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Weber, L., & Pickering, S. (2011). Globalization and borders: Death at the global frontier. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nienass, B., Délano, A. (2016). Deaths, Visibility, and the Politics of Dissensus at the US-Mexico Border. In: Oberprantacher, A., Siclodi, A. (eds) Subjectivation in Political Theory and Contemporary Practices. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51659-6_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51659-6_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51658-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51659-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)