IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v59y2022i3p526-547.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Checkpoint urbanism: Violent infrastructures and border stigmas in the Juárez border region

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo Martén

    (Independent Researcher, Costa Rica)

  • Camillo Boano

    (University College London, UK
    Politecnico di Torino, Italy)

Abstract

As Popitz (2017) argues, violence is one component of the great economy of world history, an option permanently open to human activity. In Ciudad Juárez, right at the border between the United States and Mexico, this notion explains the fundamental incongruity that characterises the region: a booming industrial productive model operating in parallel with an international crime and violence hotspot that is also a coveted criminal passageway. This paper will argue that official and criminal checkpoints designed for border-crossing, have had a transformative spatial role when considered across the dimensions of infrastructure and stigma, triggering a material/symbolic tension. We argue that their location and accessibility determine the exposure of nearby communities to economic growth but also violent entrepreneurship – the illegal crossing of goods and people still remains a constant characteristic of the region, not only as part of a criminal enterprise but as a viable livelihood. The ways in which the region of Juárez develops and grows also determines how trafficking and illegal practices are established; rules and regulations that provide territorial parameters for what is open and transparent are equally referential to what is clandestine and devious. The tensions brought by the border’s geopolitical value have amplified the value of infrastructure and its practical ownership. The international border operates as a line that is barrier, social divider, landmark, policy-bridge, filtering mechanism and trafficking obstacle. Under this permanent state of tension, the checkpoints provide a physical structure to the transit flows and a sovereign interruption. Across this urbanism , the checkpoint surroundings acquire a magnetic significance, due to the resulting transit dynamics and the surveillance deterrents at the core of their function. Furthermore, their dual nature – official and criminal – has branded the region as a criminal outpost, stigmatising the people inhabiting it, and perpetuating the idea that Juárez is defined by its violent infrastructures.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo Martén & Camillo Boano, 2022. "Checkpoint urbanism: Violent infrastructures and border stigmas in the Juárez border region," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(3), pages 526-547, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:3:p:526-547
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980211048414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980211048414
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980211048414?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wayne A. Cornelius, 2001. "Death at the Border: Efficacy and Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Control Policy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 27(4), pages 661-685, December.
    2. Lawrence A. Herzog, 1991. "Cross-national Urban Structure in the Era of Global Cities: The US-Mexico Transfrontier Metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 519-533, August.
    3. Christophe Sohn, 2014. "The Border as a Resource in the Global Urban Space: A Contribution to the Cross-Border Metropolis Hypothesis," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1697-1711, September.
    4. Marianne H Marchand, 2004. "Neo-liberal Disciplining, Violence and Transnational Organizing: The struggle for women's rights in Ciudad Juárez," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 47(1), pages 88-93, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Catalina Ortiz, 2024. "Writing the Latin American city: Trajectories of urban scholarship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 399-425, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. SOHN Christophe & LICHERON Julien, 2015. "From barrier to resource? Modelling the border effects on metropolitan functions in Europe," LISER Working Paper Series 2015-08, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    2. Matthew Ward & Daniel E Martinez, 2015. "Know Your Enemy: How Unauthorized Repatriated Migrants Learn About and Perceive Anti-Immigrant Mobilization in the United States," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 12(2), pages 137-151, May.
    3. David, Blight, 2020. "Trends of International Migration since Post-World War II," MPRA Paper 106307, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2020.
    4. Maoyong Fan & Susan Gabbard & Anita Alves Pena & Jeffrey M. Perloff, 2015. "Why Do Fewer Agricultural Workers Migrate Now?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(3), pages 665-679.
    5. Giacomo Battiston, 2022. "Rescue on Stage: Border Enforcement and Public Attention in the Mediterranean Sea," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0292, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    6. Loris Servillo & Rob Atkinson & Abdelillah Hamdouch & Christophe Sohn, 2017. "Cartography of a Blind Spot: An Exploratory Analysis of European Border Cities," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 108(4), pages 512-518, September.
    7. Jill M Williams, 2020. "Affecting migration: Public information campaigns and the intimate spatialities of border enforcement," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(7-8), pages 1198-1215, November.
    8. Binhan Elif, Yilmaz, 2016. "International Migration Trends and Policy Effects," MPRA Paper 106103, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2016.
    9. Assunção, Juliano Junqueira & Carvalho, Leandro, 2013. "Financial Constraints, Endogenous Educational Choices and Self-Selection of Migrants," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 33(2), November.
    10. Claudio Deiana & Vikram Maheshri & Giovanni Mastrobuoni, 2020. "Migrants at Sea: Unintended Consequences of Search and Rescue Operations," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 636, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    11. Prema‐chandra Athukorala, 2006. "International Labour Migration in East Asia: trends, patterns and policy issues," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 20(1), pages 18-39, May.
    12. Claudio Deiana & Vikram Maheshri & Giovanni Mastrobuoni, 2024. "Migrants at Sea: Unintended Consequences of Search and Rescue Operations," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 335-365, May.
    13. Bożena, Chrząstowska, 2018. "The Effectiveness of Migration Policies," MPRA Paper 106128, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2018.
    14. Nicole Filion & Andrew Fenelon & Michel Boudreaux, 2018. "Immigration, citizenship, and the mental health of adolescents," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-12, May.
    15. Catalina Ortiz, 2024. "Writing the Latin American city: Trajectories of urban scholarship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 399-425, February.
    16. Les, Christidis, 2018. "Effectiveness and Trends of International Migration since Post-World War II," MPRA Paper 106282, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2018.
    17. Punter, Dagmar E. & van der Veen, Hasse & van Wingerden, Enrike & Vigneswaran, Darshan, 2019. "A ‘distributive regime’: rethinking global migration control," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100172, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Jeremy Slack & Daniel E. Martínez, 2018. "What Makes a Good Human Smuggler? The Differences between Satisfaction with and Recommendation of Coyotes on the U.S.-Mexico Border," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 676(1), pages 152-173, March.
    19. Ravi Kashyap, 2017. "Solving Society’s Big Ills, A Small Step," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(4), pages 175-175, April.
    20. Ibrahim Sirkeci, 2009. "Transnational mobility and conflict," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 6(1), pages 3-14, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:3:p:526-547. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.