This paper introduces an innovative method for enhanced researcher reflexivity: the use of synchr... more This paper introduces an innovative method for enhanced researcher reflexivity: the use of synchronous collective writing as a space to collaboratively reflect on experiences of subjectification within the contemporary academy. We explore how, despite its apparent importance to contemporary research, the neoliberalisation of academia leaves little room for meaningful reflexivity. The authors in this paperranging from Master's student to postdoctoral researcherwrote collaboratively in real-time to organically develop a method of collective reflexivity. Through auto-ethnographic vignettes that act as raw data, and a critical analysis of how we came to experience the events showcased in these vignettes, we analyse how our positionalities shape both our subjection to, and perpetuation of, systems of symbolic violence in neoliberal academic institutions. Through this method, we explore experiences of the contemporary university as patriarchal, intensively marketised, and as a space where the prevalence of 'weak' reflexivity has negative impacts on research ethics. We argue that the affect of collaborative writing spaces acts as a resistance against our experiences of loneliness, competition and individualism. We also argue our new approach fosters research that is more responsive to the socio-material conditions to which it attends, and enables a deeper engagement with affect-led methodologies and slow-research.
Media and political discourse in the USA often depict migration as an invasion and people who cro... more Media and political discourse in the USA often depict migration as an invasion and people who cross borders as criminals dangerous to the nation. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two places on the USA-Mexico Southern border, we want to analyze how invasion narratives influence practices on-the-ground. We first explore how these narratives inform the views of a border militia who see themselves as protectors of the nation and understand people who cross borders as threats. We then argue that migrant women's presence in areas where the militia operates disrupts the dominant narrative that defines migrants as dangerous, as militia members come to understand migrant women as victims of the Cartel. Despite their innocence, to maintain the narrative's consistency, militia members still consider migrant women criminals for crossing the border "illegally. " Finally, we move on to explore the materiality of these xenophobic discourses by examining how migrant women are mistreated at a family immigration detention center. Using the militias as an example, we highlight why political narratives circulate and have meaning for individuals and how discourses have material consequences.
Migration deterrence campaigns are part of a set of border externalisation strategies that extend... more Migration deterrence campaigns are part of a set of border externalisation strategies that extend one nation's border into other territories. Building on the literature of border externalisation, migration deterrence, and feminist media studies, we address these campaigns as critical performative strategies that enact neoliberal ideologies and depoliticise migration. We analyse three cases-two from the US and one from Europe-in which nations target would-be migrants with multimedia messaging to persuade them to stay home and become productive citizens in their countries of origin. We argue that these campaigns reify neoliberal notions of the moral, responsible citizen, and the criminal or bound-to-falter migrant. In particular, deterrence media embrace the paradoxical notion that migrants are responsible for making the right choice yet possess no agency. As our discussion demonstrates, strategies that discourage people from moving enact neoliberal ideologies that treat migration as a purely individual decision, decontextualised from issues of structural inequality.
Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration s... more Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration system extremely complicated. In many border spaces, destination or transit countries, the difficult registration processes and the lack of support services requires the intervention and support of many non-state actors. Over the past decades, neoliberal policies have increasingly relegated public responsibilities to the private sphere. In this vein, a range of organisations have been working with refugees to assist them access to their legal status. This paper seeks to critically examine on-the-ground practices of these individuals, international and local non-profit organisations—or brokers—in Malaysia and the United States of America. Using ethnographic fieldwork data from these two very disparate fieldsites—one a signatory of the Protocol to the Convention, the other a non-signatory country—we document shared difficulties, frustrations, opportunities and specific obstacles, strategies...
This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, ne... more This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice—on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.
Each year, thousands of heteronuclear families cross the US–Mexico border, fleeing from the viole... more Each year, thousands of heteronuclear families cross the US–Mexico border, fleeing from the violence in their countries of origin and seeking asylum in the United States. Even though locking asylum-seekers up goes against the UNHCR guidelines, many of these women and their underage children end up confined in one of the family immigration detention centers in the US. Migration regimes today are based on deterrence rather than human rights, and the confinement of refugees has become a common practice across the world. In this blog post, I focus on how the inclusion of private actors in the migration management arena has resulted in corporations profiting from the confinement of populations who are fleeing violence. In this way, women like Paloma are subject to an endless cycle of exploitation, first in their countries of origin and then once they reach the Global North seeking asylum.
This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's re... more This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee problem a crisis that is primarily impacting developing countries, who are hosting most of the world's 70 million displaced people. It's the highest number of people fleeing violence since the second world war, the agency said in a report. Last year, 37,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day. Little has been done to help the millions of refugees from Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria and other troubled countries find permanent resettlement options. Here are 5 solutions to the problem
In the United States, Central American Indigenous women who seek asylum are officially classified... more In the United States, Central American Indigenous women who seek asylum are officially classified as Latinas or Hispanic. The erasure and consequent invisibility of Indigenous identity not only causes assimilation but also jeopardizes Central American Indigenous women’s procedural rights. Using a transnational feminist lens combined with a Critical Latinx Indigeneities framework, and drawing on fieldwork research, I address the complex relationships of migrants whose identities are intertwined with geography, different states, and racial representations, while I claim that the invisibility of Indigenous women from Abya Yala who cross borders responds to the white settler colonial project.
Dignity in Movement: Borders, Bodies and Rights, 2021
Each year, thousands of women and their children cross the US-Mexico border seeking for asylum. E... more Each year, thousands of women and their children cross the US-Mexico border seeking for asylum. Even though locking up people who seek asylum goes against UNHCR guidelines, many of these women and their children often end up confined in immigration detention centers where they forego hardship. Due to neoliberal policies, many detention centers in the US have been privatized. Privately managed detention centers receive money from the government for having women and children detained within their facilities. Once confined, the detainees’ personal belongings are taken away and are given clothes and shoes to wear during their time at the facility. They will remain in the detention center until they pass their credible fear interview, or asylum-interview. The outcome of this interview will determine whether they can enter the US and start the refugee process, or be deported. Deploying a combination of a transnational feminist framework and ethnographic research in a detention center at the US-Mexico border, this article explores how private corporations are profiting from women’s bodies, and argues that confinement at the border is a continuation of colonial practices. Paloma’s story shows the endless cycle of exploitation that Third World women’s bodies are subjected to by corporations. Not only was her labor exploited in her country of origin, but once she reached the United States corporations profited from confining her in a privatized immigration detention center.
En 2012 se publicó en Estados Unidos un estudio que demostraba que las probabilidades de que, con... more En 2012 se publicó en Estados Unidos un estudio que demostraba que las probabilidades de que, con currículums idénticos, contrataran a un hombre antes que a una mujer para un puesto científico eran mucho más altas. Además, el salario base que ofrecían a los hombres era mucho mayor que el que se ofrecía a las mujeres, así como las oportunidades de supervisión, formación y apoyo. Lo sorprendente del estudio, si es que todavía esto nos sorprende, es que en los comités de contratación (compuestos por personal investigador) habían sido tanto hombres como mujeres quienes habían discriminado por razón de sexo. Tres años después, Naciones Unidas declaró el 11 de febrero como Día Internacional de la Mujer y la Niña en la Ciencia para recordarnos la relevancia de visibilizar el trabajo de las mujeres en la ciencia, y la necesidad de establecer mecanismos que permitan que aumente y se mantenga su presencia, y la de otras minorías, en este sector. A pesar de que hay motivo de celebración por los avances feministas en muchas materias, siguen existiendo barreras que impiden el progreso en materia de igualdad. ¿Por qué hay menos mujeres en la ciencia? La respuesta corta es: por la socialización. No es ningún secreto que a hombres y mujeres nos educan de manera distinta. La familia, la escuela y los medios nos socializan en el machismo. Desde el lenguaje que se utiliza en nuestra casa, hasta los modelos con los que crecemos. No consuma noticias, entiéndalas. ¿Cuántas imágenes de mujeres hay en los libros de texto que utilizan los colegios? ¿Cuántas protagonistas son mujeres en los libros que leemos? ¿Cuántas autoras leímos en clase de literatura? ¿Cuántas películas vemos con mujeres protagonistas que pasen el test de Bechdel? Estudios recientes demuestran la importancia de tener modelos femeninos que sirvan de inspiración para elegir carrera, modelos que están ausentes del material con el que se nos educa. A nosotras nos socializan en los cuidados, la discreción, la humildad, la empatía, la sensibilidad y el trabajo emocional; y a los hombres en la fuerza, lo objetivo, lo racional, la valentía y la resolución de problemas. De esta manera, dada la separación dicotómica que existe en las letras y las ciencias, donde las letras se asocian a características femeninas (sensibilidad) y las ciencias a características masculinas (lo racional), no es casualidad que más hombres terminen dedicándose a carreras científicas, o STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) por sus siglas en inglés. Si hay mujeres científicas, ¿por qué tan pocas ocupan puestos de poder? La respuesta corta es: por la socialización. A los hombres los educan para salir a la esfera pública. Por eso es más probable que la esfera privada esté relegada a las mujeres, mientras que la pública esté dominada por los hombres. Los efectos de esta socialización diferencial, entre otros, hacen que los hombres hablen más en reuniones, interrumpan más, estén más presentes en medios de comunicación, ostenten más cargos políticos, ocupen más puestos de toma de decisiones y tiendan a contratar a otros hombres. De la misma manera, esas diferencias en la socialización hacen que, entre otras cosas, las mujeres hablemos menos en público, nos presentemos menos a puestos de poder y nos sintamos más responsables que nuestras parejas (heterosexuales) del cuidado de nuestras criaturas y mayores. Todo esto se traduce en que las mujeres tendemos a ocupar puestos que nos permitan atender a las responsabilidades de nuestros hogares. Desgraciadamente, esto sucede en todos los ámbitos, incluidas las profesiones que están feminizadas (donde la mayoría son mujeres), como la enseñanza o el sector sanitario. El machismo está en todas partes El estudio con el que empecé este artículo puso en evidencia que las mujeres que formaban el comité de reclutamiento de personal científico también favorecían la contratación de hombres antes que mujeres. Esto sucede porque las mujeres también tenemos interiorizado el machismo, incluidas las que somos conscientes de que vivimos en un patriarcado. Reproducimos los esquemas de poder de manera involuntaria. Pensemos en el lenguaje que utilizamos, en cuántos libros escritos por mujeres tenemos en las estanterías de nuestras casas, en cuántas series vemos protagonizadas o dirigidas por mujeres, en qué modelos les enseñamos a las criaturas que tenemos a nuestro alrededor, de qué chistes nos reímos, a quién criticamos y por qué. Todas esas acciones que parecen insignificantes, en realidad están contribuyendo a crear trabas en el avance del feminismo. Porque el machismo es malo para las mujeres, es malo para los hombres, y es malo para la ciencia. Necesitamos hacer un esfuerzo activo para reconocer que el machismo está muy presente en las instituciones (desde las educativas, hasta nuestras casas) y para cambiar la manera en que socializamos a nuestras criaturas para que puedan acceder al trabajo en el ámbito científico. Y mientras mujeres y minorías entran en carreras de ciencias, esforzarnos por incluir, visibilizar y reconocer el trabajo que ya han hecho las miles de mujeres que nos han precedido.
Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration s... more Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration system extremely complicated. In many border spaces, destination or transit countries, the difficult registration processes and the lack of support services requires the intervention and support of many non-state actors. Over the past decades, neoliberal policies have increasingly relegated public responsibilities to the private sphere. In this vein, a range of organisations have been working with refugees to assist them access to their legal status. This paper seeks to critically examine on-the-ground practices of these individuals, international and local non-profit organisations-or brokers-in Malaysia and the United States of America. Using ethnographic fieldwork data from these two very disparate fieldsites-one a signatory of the Protocol to the Convention, the other a non-signatory country-we document shared difficulties, frustrations, opportunities and specific obstacles, strategies and tactics refugees and organisations deploy. Building on Hannah Arendt's insights of an internal contradiction in the human rights framework, we point to a new aporia: Whilst there now exist international instruments to protect refugees, access to this framework and its protections is becoming ever more challenging. This means that those seeking asylum need the assistance and mediation of third-party organisations in order to access their rights. The struggle for recognition and protection thus is no longer about achieving universal rights, but rather on how vulnerable populations can access them.
This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, ne... more This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice-on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.
In mid-August, EU border agency Frontex released Frontex Up Close, a promotional video that showc... more In mid-August, EU border agency Frontex released Frontex Up Close, a promotional video that showcases the agency's technological prowess and doubles as a recruitment tool for its new battalion of border agents. Beyond its recruitment potential, the video circulates a set of institutional values that reinforce anti-immigrant ideologies in a time of economic and public health crises.
Prostitution in feminism is always the object of a strong polarized debate, most of which is conc... more Prostitution in feminism is always the object of a strong polarized debate, most of which is concentrated on the definition itself. It is considered a synonym of violence, as the abolitionists claim, or an occupational choice, as the regulationists claim. As a result of this debate, ideological positions have crystallized into laws regarding prostitution in different countries. At one end of the spectrum we find the abolitionist model in Sweden, where laws abolish prostitution and where the client is fined or incarcerated, but never the prostitute. On the other end of the spectrum we find the Netherlands, where prostitution is considered to be a job and sex-workers are protected by Dutch labor legislation, consistent with the regulationist model. This paper critiques both the models in Sweden and the Netherlands through an exploration on how their laws affect the women who work in prostitution. However, the paper also considers arguments that either model would be a better means of securing prostitutes’ rights than the widespread family of models (including in the U.S) that criminalize prostitutes. My analysis of weaknesses and strengths of each model with respect to their impact on the
lives of women will propose the possibility of formulating alternatives. This paper thus contributes to the larger debate on prostitution without becoming trapped by the dichotomy that is often presupposed within feminist discussion.
This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee pr... more This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee problem a crisis that is primarily impacting developing countries, who are hosting most of the world's 70 million displaced people. It's the highest number of people fleeing violence since the second world war, the agency said in a report. Last year, 37,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day. Little has been done to help the millions of refugees from Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria and other troubled countries find permanent resettlement options. Here are 5 solutions to the problem
This paper introduces an innovative method for enhanced researcher reflexivity: the use of synchr... more This paper introduces an innovative method for enhanced researcher reflexivity: the use of synchronous collective writing as a space to collaboratively reflect on experiences of subjectification within the contemporary academy. We explore how, despite its apparent importance to contemporary research, the neoliberalisation of academia leaves little room for meaningful reflexivity. The authors in this paperranging from Master's student to postdoctoral researcherwrote collaboratively in real-time to organically develop a method of collective reflexivity. Through auto-ethnographic vignettes that act as raw data, and a critical analysis of how we came to experience the events showcased in these vignettes, we analyse how our positionalities shape both our subjection to, and perpetuation of, systems of symbolic violence in neoliberal academic institutions. Through this method, we explore experiences of the contemporary university as patriarchal, intensively marketised, and as a space where the prevalence of 'weak' reflexivity has negative impacts on research ethics. We argue that the affect of collaborative writing spaces acts as a resistance against our experiences of loneliness, competition and individualism. We also argue our new approach fosters research that is more responsive to the socio-material conditions to which it attends, and enables a deeper engagement with affect-led methodologies and slow-research.
Media and political discourse in the USA often depict migration as an invasion and people who cro... more Media and political discourse in the USA often depict migration as an invasion and people who cross borders as criminals dangerous to the nation. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two places on the USA-Mexico Southern border, we want to analyze how invasion narratives influence practices on-the-ground. We first explore how these narratives inform the views of a border militia who see themselves as protectors of the nation and understand people who cross borders as threats. We then argue that migrant women's presence in areas where the militia operates disrupts the dominant narrative that defines migrants as dangerous, as militia members come to understand migrant women as victims of the Cartel. Despite their innocence, to maintain the narrative's consistency, militia members still consider migrant women criminals for crossing the border "illegally. " Finally, we move on to explore the materiality of these xenophobic discourses by examining how migrant women are mistreated at a family immigration detention center. Using the militias as an example, we highlight why political narratives circulate and have meaning for individuals and how discourses have material consequences.
Migration deterrence campaigns are part of a set of border externalisation strategies that extend... more Migration deterrence campaigns are part of a set of border externalisation strategies that extend one nation's border into other territories. Building on the literature of border externalisation, migration deterrence, and feminist media studies, we address these campaigns as critical performative strategies that enact neoliberal ideologies and depoliticise migration. We analyse three cases-two from the US and one from Europe-in which nations target would-be migrants with multimedia messaging to persuade them to stay home and become productive citizens in their countries of origin. We argue that these campaigns reify neoliberal notions of the moral, responsible citizen, and the criminal or bound-to-falter migrant. In particular, deterrence media embrace the paradoxical notion that migrants are responsible for making the right choice yet possess no agency. As our discussion demonstrates, strategies that discourage people from moving enact neoliberal ideologies that treat migration as a purely individual decision, decontextualised from issues of structural inequality.
Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration s... more Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration system extremely complicated. In many border spaces, destination or transit countries, the difficult registration processes and the lack of support services requires the intervention and support of many non-state actors. Over the past decades, neoliberal policies have increasingly relegated public responsibilities to the private sphere. In this vein, a range of organisations have been working with refugees to assist them access to their legal status. This paper seeks to critically examine on-the-ground practices of these individuals, international and local non-profit organisations—or brokers—in Malaysia and the United States of America. Using ethnographic fieldwork data from these two very disparate fieldsites—one a signatory of the Protocol to the Convention, the other a non-signatory country—we document shared difficulties, frustrations, opportunities and specific obstacles, strategies...
This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, ne... more This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice—on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.
Each year, thousands of heteronuclear families cross the US–Mexico border, fleeing from the viole... more Each year, thousands of heteronuclear families cross the US–Mexico border, fleeing from the violence in their countries of origin and seeking asylum in the United States. Even though locking asylum-seekers up goes against the UNHCR guidelines, many of these women and their underage children end up confined in one of the family immigration detention centers in the US. Migration regimes today are based on deterrence rather than human rights, and the confinement of refugees has become a common practice across the world. In this blog post, I focus on how the inclusion of private actors in the migration management arena has resulted in corporations profiting from the confinement of populations who are fleeing violence. In this way, women like Paloma are subject to an endless cycle of exploitation, first in their countries of origin and then once they reach the Global North seeking asylum.
This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's re... more This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee problem a crisis that is primarily impacting developing countries, who are hosting most of the world's 70 million displaced people. It's the highest number of people fleeing violence since the second world war, the agency said in a report. Last year, 37,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day. Little has been done to help the millions of refugees from Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria and other troubled countries find permanent resettlement options. Here are 5 solutions to the problem
In the United States, Central American Indigenous women who seek asylum are officially classified... more In the United States, Central American Indigenous women who seek asylum are officially classified as Latinas or Hispanic. The erasure and consequent invisibility of Indigenous identity not only causes assimilation but also jeopardizes Central American Indigenous women’s procedural rights. Using a transnational feminist lens combined with a Critical Latinx Indigeneities framework, and drawing on fieldwork research, I address the complex relationships of migrants whose identities are intertwined with geography, different states, and racial representations, while I claim that the invisibility of Indigenous women from Abya Yala who cross borders responds to the white settler colonial project.
Dignity in Movement: Borders, Bodies and Rights, 2021
Each year, thousands of women and their children cross the US-Mexico border seeking for asylum. E... more Each year, thousands of women and their children cross the US-Mexico border seeking for asylum. Even though locking up people who seek asylum goes against UNHCR guidelines, many of these women and their children often end up confined in immigration detention centers where they forego hardship. Due to neoliberal policies, many detention centers in the US have been privatized. Privately managed detention centers receive money from the government for having women and children detained within their facilities. Once confined, the detainees’ personal belongings are taken away and are given clothes and shoes to wear during their time at the facility. They will remain in the detention center until they pass their credible fear interview, or asylum-interview. The outcome of this interview will determine whether they can enter the US and start the refugee process, or be deported. Deploying a combination of a transnational feminist framework and ethnographic research in a detention center at the US-Mexico border, this article explores how private corporations are profiting from women’s bodies, and argues that confinement at the border is a continuation of colonial practices. Paloma’s story shows the endless cycle of exploitation that Third World women’s bodies are subjected to by corporations. Not only was her labor exploited in her country of origin, but once she reached the United States corporations profited from confining her in a privatized immigration detention center.
En 2012 se publicó en Estados Unidos un estudio que demostraba que las probabilidades de que, con... more En 2012 se publicó en Estados Unidos un estudio que demostraba que las probabilidades de que, con currículums idénticos, contrataran a un hombre antes que a una mujer para un puesto científico eran mucho más altas. Además, el salario base que ofrecían a los hombres era mucho mayor que el que se ofrecía a las mujeres, así como las oportunidades de supervisión, formación y apoyo. Lo sorprendente del estudio, si es que todavía esto nos sorprende, es que en los comités de contratación (compuestos por personal investigador) habían sido tanto hombres como mujeres quienes habían discriminado por razón de sexo. Tres años después, Naciones Unidas declaró el 11 de febrero como Día Internacional de la Mujer y la Niña en la Ciencia para recordarnos la relevancia de visibilizar el trabajo de las mujeres en la ciencia, y la necesidad de establecer mecanismos que permitan que aumente y se mantenga su presencia, y la de otras minorías, en este sector. A pesar de que hay motivo de celebración por los avances feministas en muchas materias, siguen existiendo barreras que impiden el progreso en materia de igualdad. ¿Por qué hay menos mujeres en la ciencia? La respuesta corta es: por la socialización. No es ningún secreto que a hombres y mujeres nos educan de manera distinta. La familia, la escuela y los medios nos socializan en el machismo. Desde el lenguaje que se utiliza en nuestra casa, hasta los modelos con los que crecemos. No consuma noticias, entiéndalas. ¿Cuántas imágenes de mujeres hay en los libros de texto que utilizan los colegios? ¿Cuántas protagonistas son mujeres en los libros que leemos? ¿Cuántas autoras leímos en clase de literatura? ¿Cuántas películas vemos con mujeres protagonistas que pasen el test de Bechdel? Estudios recientes demuestran la importancia de tener modelos femeninos que sirvan de inspiración para elegir carrera, modelos que están ausentes del material con el que se nos educa. A nosotras nos socializan en los cuidados, la discreción, la humildad, la empatía, la sensibilidad y el trabajo emocional; y a los hombres en la fuerza, lo objetivo, lo racional, la valentía y la resolución de problemas. De esta manera, dada la separación dicotómica que existe en las letras y las ciencias, donde las letras se asocian a características femeninas (sensibilidad) y las ciencias a características masculinas (lo racional), no es casualidad que más hombres terminen dedicándose a carreras científicas, o STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) por sus siglas en inglés. Si hay mujeres científicas, ¿por qué tan pocas ocupan puestos de poder? La respuesta corta es: por la socialización. A los hombres los educan para salir a la esfera pública. Por eso es más probable que la esfera privada esté relegada a las mujeres, mientras que la pública esté dominada por los hombres. Los efectos de esta socialización diferencial, entre otros, hacen que los hombres hablen más en reuniones, interrumpan más, estén más presentes en medios de comunicación, ostenten más cargos políticos, ocupen más puestos de toma de decisiones y tiendan a contratar a otros hombres. De la misma manera, esas diferencias en la socialización hacen que, entre otras cosas, las mujeres hablemos menos en público, nos presentemos menos a puestos de poder y nos sintamos más responsables que nuestras parejas (heterosexuales) del cuidado de nuestras criaturas y mayores. Todo esto se traduce en que las mujeres tendemos a ocupar puestos que nos permitan atender a las responsabilidades de nuestros hogares. Desgraciadamente, esto sucede en todos los ámbitos, incluidas las profesiones que están feminizadas (donde la mayoría son mujeres), como la enseñanza o el sector sanitario. El machismo está en todas partes El estudio con el que empecé este artículo puso en evidencia que las mujeres que formaban el comité de reclutamiento de personal científico también favorecían la contratación de hombres antes que mujeres. Esto sucede porque las mujeres también tenemos interiorizado el machismo, incluidas las que somos conscientes de que vivimos en un patriarcado. Reproducimos los esquemas de poder de manera involuntaria. Pensemos en el lenguaje que utilizamos, en cuántos libros escritos por mujeres tenemos en las estanterías de nuestras casas, en cuántas series vemos protagonizadas o dirigidas por mujeres, en qué modelos les enseñamos a las criaturas que tenemos a nuestro alrededor, de qué chistes nos reímos, a quién criticamos y por qué. Todas esas acciones que parecen insignificantes, en realidad están contribuyendo a crear trabas en el avance del feminismo. Porque el machismo es malo para las mujeres, es malo para los hombres, y es malo para la ciencia. Necesitamos hacer un esfuerzo activo para reconocer que el machismo está muy presente en las instituciones (desde las educativas, hasta nuestras casas) y para cambiar la manera en que socializamos a nuestras criaturas para que puedan acceder al trabajo en el ámbito científico. Y mientras mujeres y minorías entran en carreras de ciencias, esforzarnos por incluir, visibilizar y reconocer el trabajo que ya han hecho las miles de mujeres que nos han precedido.
Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration s... more Many refugees fleeing from persecution across borders, find navigating the refugee registration system extremely complicated. In many border spaces, destination or transit countries, the difficult registration processes and the lack of support services requires the intervention and support of many non-state actors. Over the past decades, neoliberal policies have increasingly relegated public responsibilities to the private sphere. In this vein, a range of organisations have been working with refugees to assist them access to their legal status. This paper seeks to critically examine on-the-ground practices of these individuals, international and local non-profit organisations-or brokers-in Malaysia and the United States of America. Using ethnographic fieldwork data from these two very disparate fieldsites-one a signatory of the Protocol to the Convention, the other a non-signatory country-we document shared difficulties, frustrations, opportunities and specific obstacles, strategies and tactics refugees and organisations deploy. Building on Hannah Arendt's insights of an internal contradiction in the human rights framework, we point to a new aporia: Whilst there now exist international instruments to protect refugees, access to this framework and its protections is becoming ever more challenging. This means that those seeking asylum need the assistance and mediation of third-party organisations in order to access their rights. The struggle for recognition and protection thus is no longer about achieving universal rights, but rather on how vulnerable populations can access them.
This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, ne... more This article explores the mechanisms in which, through the US family detention asylum process, neoliberal ideas of citizenship are reinforced and contested. Through ethnographic research, and using a Foucauldian lens, we take a closer look at the neoliberal processes involved within so-called family detention. Specifically, we focus on legal advocates who are helping detained women prepare for their legal interviews. This paper argues that humanitarian aid work becomes knowable through attention to microlevel details and forms of practice-on the ground and at the margins. This affords a recognition of not only areas of functional solidarity or symbiosis with the state, but also those less visible forms of contestation. We claim that while legal advocates play a role within the neoliberal regimes at work inside these centres, they also contest this system in various critical ways, ensuring both access to legal representation for all detainees and their eventual release.
In mid-August, EU border agency Frontex released Frontex Up Close, a promotional video that showc... more In mid-August, EU border agency Frontex released Frontex Up Close, a promotional video that showcases the agency's technological prowess and doubles as a recruitment tool for its new battalion of border agents. Beyond its recruitment potential, the video circulates a set of institutional values that reinforce anti-immigrant ideologies in a time of economic and public health crises.
Prostitution in feminism is always the object of a strong polarized debate, most of which is conc... more Prostitution in feminism is always the object of a strong polarized debate, most of which is concentrated on the definition itself. It is considered a synonym of violence, as the abolitionists claim, or an occupational choice, as the regulationists claim. As a result of this debate, ideological positions have crystallized into laws regarding prostitution in different countries. At one end of the spectrum we find the abolitionist model in Sweden, where laws abolish prostitution and where the client is fined or incarcerated, but never the prostitute. On the other end of the spectrum we find the Netherlands, where prostitution is considered to be a job and sex-workers are protected by Dutch labor legislation, consistent with the regulationist model. This paper critiques both the models in Sweden and the Netherlands through an exploration on how their laws affect the women who work in prostitution. However, the paper also considers arguments that either model would be a better means of securing prostitutes’ rights than the widespread family of models (including in the U.S) that criminalize prostitutes. My analysis of weaknesses and strengths of each model with respect to their impact on the
lives of women will propose the possibility of formulating alternatives. This paper thus contributes to the larger debate on prostitution without becoming trapped by the dichotomy that is often presupposed within feminist discussion.
This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee pr... more This week, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, labelled the world's refugee problem a crisis that is primarily impacting developing countries, who are hosting most of the world's 70 million displaced people. It's the highest number of people fleeing violence since the second world war, the agency said in a report. Last year, 37,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day. Little has been done to help the millions of refugees from Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria and other troubled countries find permanent resettlement options. Here are 5 solutions to the problem
Thousands of Central American families are fleeing from violence in their own countries and seeki... more Thousands of Central American families are fleeing from violence in their own countries and seeking protection in the US. However, once they enter the country they are immediately confined in temporary holding cells – also called hieleras (iceboxes) due to their extremely low temperatures, where they undergo violence and neglect. The hieleras become the site where the categories of the asylum-seeker, the immigrant, and the criminal become conflated. Asylum-seekers entering the country also enter an already existing racialized structure where Latina/o subjects have been criminalized. This article analyzes the hieleras through a Foucauldian and a transnational feminist lens, and argues that these holding cells work as a site for punishing border crossers and deterring them (and others like them) from pursuing the asylum process; which are displays of both sovereign power and disciplinary power.
Critical Humanitarianisms: Neoliberal Entanglements with the State
This four-day writing retreat... more Critical Humanitarianisms: Neoliberal Entanglements with the State
This four-day writing retreat at Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island May 30-June 2, 2022) seeks to gather scholars who are working on issues that interrogate the relationship between the state and the refugee/asylum-seeker/migrant through an exploration of humanitarian (local or transnational) discourses and practices. Papers can include a number of methodologies and geographical sites from around the world. This multidisciplinary project seeks to add to the literature on critical humanitarianism, critical refugee and migration studies, critical border studies, human geography, anthropology, and feminist scholarship.
Please submit an abstract (approx. 300 words) to: sararguezriva@gmail.com Deadline: 20th March 2022. If accepted, please be ready to send a draft of your paper one week before the retreat. Our aim with this retreat is to work on a journal’s special issue. For any questions, please write to: sararguezriva@gmail.com
Closing Date: 15th April
Border Abolition 2021 will be a two-day online conference aimed at con... more Closing Date: 15th April
Border Abolition 2021 will be a two-day online conference aimed at connecting organising, campaigning, activist research and academic work around border violence, incarceration, abolitionism, racism and other interlocking forms of racialisation. We hope to bring together people struggling against borders in all their forms, from immigration detention, prison and militarised border sites, to the solidarity practices that resist expanding systems of everyday bordering. We see this work as also envisioning the creation of systems of care, safety and support that many of our communities lack. In a current moment in which borders and punitive violence seem to be growing and entrenching, it is more important than ever to formulate an abolitionism that looks at migration not as a stand-alone field but, rather, in connection with heterogeneous struggles against racialising bordering mechanisms, drawing connections between different forms of containment, detention and exploitation that are often invisibilized or discussed separately. We situate ourselves within a growing network of abolitionist organising that seeks to end the harms done by policing, punishment, incarceration, neoliberal capitalism and state-corporate control, whilst acknowledging the wider ways in which carceral logics and violence operate.
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lives of women will propose the possibility of formulating alternatives. This paper thus contributes to the larger debate on prostitution without becoming trapped by the dichotomy that is often presupposed within feminist discussion.
lives of women will propose the possibility of formulating alternatives. This paper thus contributes to the larger debate on prostitution without becoming trapped by the dichotomy that is often presupposed within feminist discussion.
This four-day writing retreat at Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island May 30-June 2, 2022) seeks to gather scholars who are working on issues that interrogate the relationship between the state and the refugee/asylum-seeker/migrant through an exploration of humanitarian (local or transnational) discourses and practices. Papers can include a number of methodologies and geographical sites from around the world. This multidisciplinary project seeks to add to the literature on critical humanitarianism, critical refugee and migration studies, critical border studies, human geography, anthropology, and feminist scholarship.
Please submit an abstract (approx. 300 words) to: sararguezriva@gmail.com Deadline: 20th March 2022. If accepted, please be ready to send a draft of your paper one week before the retreat. Our aim with this retreat is to work on a journal’s special issue. For any questions, please write to: sararguezriva@gmail.com
Border Abolition 2021 will be a two-day online conference aimed at connecting organising, campaigning, activist research and academic work around border violence, incarceration, abolitionism, racism and other interlocking forms of racialisation. We hope to bring together people struggling against borders in all their forms, from immigration detention, prison and militarised border sites, to the solidarity practices that resist expanding systems of everyday bordering. We see this work as also envisioning the creation of systems of care, safety and support that many of our communities lack. In a current moment in which borders and punitive violence seem to be growing and entrenching, it is more important than ever to formulate an abolitionism that looks at migration not as a stand-alone field but, rather, in connection with heterogeneous struggles against racialising bordering mechanisms, drawing connections between different forms of containment, detention and exploitation that are often invisibilized or discussed separately. We situate ourselves within a growing network of abolitionist organising that seeks to end the harms done by policing, punishment, incarceration, neoliberal capitalism and state-corporate control, whilst acknowledging the wider ways in which carceral logics and violence operate.