Email jmheyman@utep.edu . I am interested in all things that concern borders, and the processes that shape them and pass through them. My three most recent inquiries are regulation of spatial movement generally (building on, but going beyond borders per se), participant observation of engaged/activist anthropology (and lessons thereof), and unequal territorialization and political ecology of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Much of my work centers on the presence of and limits to state power at borders. This has connected to a specific focus on migration and mobility, state power, apartheid, and exploitation. It has led to a focus on state workers, bureaucratic work processes, societal power and bureaucracies, etc. My border and migration work has lead to an active role in public policy, focusing on alternative migration and border policies for the United States, in collaboration with community organizations and national policy organizations. That, in turn, has lead to a long sequence of works on values, advocacy, and social science (applied or engaged anthropology). I am also interested in border cultures and complex/dynamic analyses of them, and how such approaches contribute to culture theory generally. I have also worked for many years on anthropology of work, of working classes, household economies (including unpaid/reproductive work within capitalism), and consumption. I contribute modestly to the nascent field of political ecology, and to political economy within anthropology. I am a student of, and advocate for, the legacy of Eric Wolf in anthropology, and the social sciences and history generally.
Supervisors: Eric R. Wolf
Supervisors: Eric R. Wolf
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This report addresses unmet drinking water and wastewater needs—as well as related issues of stormwater, watershed and wetlands management—for millions of Americans along the U.S. border with Mexico. This region includes the counties immediately adjacent to the U.S.–Mexico border or located partially within the zone that extends 60 miles (100 kilometers [km]) north of the international boundary. This area is the poorest region of the country, with per capita incomes, health outcomes and education levels well below the national average. Approximately 10 million U.S. residents, mainly Hispanic, live in this region, including approximately 800,000 individuals in colonias and rural areas. About 400,000 Native Americans, 300,000 colonias and rural residents, and more than a million people in cities adjacent to the international boundary are underserved in terms of water and wastewater infrastructure and services. The intersection of poverty, ethnicity, and lack of
basic water and sanitary services has created persistent inequities and an environmental and public health crisis along the southern border.
The Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB) recognizes the progress that federal agencies and their partners at the tribal and state levels have made in addressing unmet water and wastewater infrastructure needs and related watershed and wetlands issues. This momentum has accelerated with significant new infrastructure funding from Congress and a renewed focus by federal agencies on underserved populations throughout the United States and in the border region. However, continued attention by federal agencies is necessary, especially to benefit smaller communities with limited resources and communities on the international boundary that are impacted by transborder sewage flows.
Recommendations of the 20th Report
GNEB provides the following 10 recommendations for general and specific federal actions throughout this report:
1. Continue to expand federal partnerships to make water and wastewater infrastructure funding and other water-related funding accessible to marginalized and underserved border communities as a priority of the
administration and federal agencies. Proactive outreach by collaborating federal agencies is essential for reaching rural, peri-urban and tribal communities that have been left behind with previous efforts. Funding
must include grants, as well as support for operations and maintenance.
2. Provide targeted technical assistance to aid and expedite underserved border communities, including tribal governments, to take advantage of the resources provided by such federal investments as the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 and other sources that include funding for water and wastewater projects and watershed
and wetlands management. For example, BIL incorporates a requirement that 49 percent of certain federal funds provided to states through the Drinking Water Revolving Funds and Clean Water Revolving Funds must
be distributed as grants or 100 percent principal forgiveness loans. The federal government should work with border communities and border states so that state grants and loans with 100 percent principal forgiveness are
directed to underserved communities, many of which are border communities. The administration should also evaluate whether additional grant funds can be made available to poor communities, particularly because BIL funding will extend only through fiscal year (F Y ) 2026.
3. Develop a grant program to assist border communities with ongoing operations and maintenance of public water systems. The Drinking Water Revolving Funds and the Clean Water Revolving Funds are focused
primarily on construction of infrastructure and cannot be used for ongoing operations and maintenance of systems, but these costs are prohibitive for many poor communities. Amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow irrigation districts to be eligible for funding similar to public water systems that receive Drinking Water Revolving Fund monies. Many poor communities obtain domestic water through irrigation districts, and the expansion of eligible entities for funding with respect to the drinking water service they provide will aid in the distribution of funds to rural and underserved populations.
4. Provide guidance to clarify that authorized uses of Clean Water Revolving Funds include measures to manage, reduce, treat or recapture stormwater, as well as development and implementation of certain watershed pilot projects. The administration should clarify that under these provisions, Clean Water Revolving Funds may be used to develop green infrastructure for urban stormwater collection and runoff and watershed restoration.
5. Provide funding to the International Boundary and Water Commission (I B W C ) for the levees and flood infrastructure on the border that only I B W C has the jurisdiction and responsibility to repair and maintain.
6. Provide guidance to clarify that authorized uses of BIL funding to state and local governments for levees and dam repair also include other flood infrastructure and ongoing sediment removal.
7. Convene a task force of the relevant federal, state, local and international agencies to devise a long-term institutional solution for chronic and predictable environmental problems, such as cross-border flows
of contaminated water and sewage. The charge of the task force should include redefining the roles of agencies and developing long-term funding streams. The North American Development Bank (NADBank) should be central to these discussions, along with I B W C , the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and relevant Mexican agencies. A key goal of this effort should be the ability to plan and prioritize water and wastewater infrastructure and related needs based on science-based transborder analysis. U.S. communities located on the international boundary face ongoing flows of wastewater and stormwater from Mexico that affect quality of life and compromise public health. The current reactive approach to these problems does not work because solutions are often delayed a decade or more, populations are continuing to grow, and the costs are much higher than necessary.
8. Fund the U.S.–Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program (B W I P ) at the $100 million level in the years to come to address the water and wastewater infrastructure deficit of border communities. On an annual basis,
Congress appropriates funding to EPA for B W I P , which is designed to fund the development, design and construction of water and wastewater infrastructure projects within the region 62 miles (100 km) north and
south of the U.S.–Mexico international boundary. In the mid-1990s, Congress appropriated $100 million on an annual basis from 1995–1997; however, from 2012–2016, Congress appropriated a mere $5 million annually. To date, B W I P has been very successful in channeling more than $700 million for basic water and sanitation infrastructure on both sides of the border. In addition, B W I P has been leveraged at a ratio of 2:1 by mobilizing local and state resources.
9. Provide a funding stream to I B W C for capital and repair projects that are critical for the health and safety of millions of border residents. The large backlog of projects includes the South Bay International Wastewater
Treatment Plant upgrade (potentially $910 million for plant expansion and rehabilitation); the Rio Grande Flood Control Project ($946 million for 158 miles [254 km] of levees, of which $70 million is for projects where a high levee failure risk exists); Tijuana River Levee Rehabilitation ($100 million for levee construction and sediment removal); and Amistad Dam Seepage Correction ($80–$276 million). These projects are not eligible for BIL financing. The administration, acting through the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Section of I B W C , should also negotiate a cost share with Mexico for the pending capital and repair projects. Congress should also approve the President’s budget request giving the U.S. Section of I B W C additional authorities to receive funds from federal and non-federal entities all along the U.S.–Mexico border, which is not currently permitted.
10. Direct I B W C and other agencies to initiate and continue as long as necessary discussions with U.S. and Mexican agencies to develop minutes to 1944’s Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande Treaty Between the United States of America and Mexico (1944 Water Treaty) for governance of each of the critically important transboundary aquifers. Long-term drought, decline of surface-water sources and growing demands for water are putting more pressure on aquifers that underlie the border. Critical transborder aquifers have experienced excessive pumping and deterioration of water quality due to intrusion of saline waters, threatening the water security of millions of border residents. Because U.S. border states control underground water in their jurisdictions and the Mexican federal government controls underground water in its jurisdiction, a comprehensive U.S.–Mexico ground water treaty is likely not achievable. To support this effort, GNEB recommends that the administration direct
available resources to continue the U.S.–Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program to properly characterize the international aquifers.
Contributors. Bridget Anderson, Deborah A. Boehm, Susan Bibler Coutin, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz, Sarah B. Horton, Josiah Heyman, Cecilia Menjívar, Juan Thomas Ordóñez, Doris Marie Provine, Nandita Sharma, Monica Varsanyi
The book, influenced by the work of Eric Wolf and senior editor Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez, centers on the greater Mexican North/U.S. Southwest, although the geographic range extends farther. This tradition, like other transborder approaches, attends to complex and fluid cultural and linguistic processes, going beyond the classical modern anthropological vision of one people, one culture, one language. With respect to recent approaches, however, it is more deeply social, focusing on vertical relations of power and horizontal bonds of mutuality.
Vélez-Ibáñez and Heyman envision this region as involving diverse and unequal social groups in dynamic motion over thousands of years. Thus the historical interaction of the U.S.-Mexico border, however massively unequal and powerful, is only the most recent manifestation of this longer history and common ecology. Contributors emphasize the dynamic "transborder" quality—conflicts, resistance, slanting, displacements, and persistence—in order to combine a critical perspective on unequal power relations with a questioning perspective on claims to bounded simplicity and perfection.
The book is notable for its high degree of connection across the various chapters, strengthened by internal syntheses from notable border scholars, including Robert R. Alvarez and Alejandro Lugo. In the final section, Judith Freidenberg draws general lessons from particular case studies, summarizing that "access to valued scarce resources prompts the erection of human differences that get solidified into borders," dividing and limiting, engendering vulnerabilities and marginalizing some people.
At a time when understanding the U.S.-Mexico border is more important than ever, this volume offers a critical anthropological and historical approach to working in transborder regions.
Contributors:
Amado Alarcón
Robert R. Álvarez
Miguel Díaz-Barriga
Margaret E. Dorsey
Judith Freidenberg
Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz
James Greenberg
Josiah Heyman
Jane H. Hill
Sarah Horton
Alejandro Lugo
Luminiţa-Anda Mandache
Corina Marrufo
Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri
Anna Ochoa O'Leary
Luis F. B. Plascencia
Lucero Radonic
Diana Riviera
Thomas E. Sheridan
Kathleen Staudt
Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez
I. Geoinformatics, LULC, and Physical Geography
I.1 Vulnerability of Irrigated Agriculture to a Drier Future in New Mexico's Mesilla and Rincon Valleys . . . . .
I.2 Impacto del cambio climático en el índice de áreas verdes para un futuro cercano 2030 en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
I.3 Cambios de coberturas y uso de suelo del río Bravo (1990-2015): temporal y espacial vs. NDVI .
I.4 Análisis de evolución piezométrica del acuífero Palomas-Guadalupe Victoria (0812) en la cuenca baja del río Casas Grandes, Ascensión, Chihuahua
II. Geopolítica y la colaboración binacional para la sustentabilidad hídrica
II.1 Transboundary Scientific Collaboration in Water Security Research: A Case Study on the U.S.-Mexico Border in the Paso del Norte Region
II.2 Gobernanza en la cuenca transfronteriza del río Bravo y el tratado de 1944. Análisis de la situación en el río Conchos: datos, hidrometría y estrategias
II.3 Advancing Transboundary Groundwater Resiliency Research through Systems Science
III. Modelación hidrológica (aguas superficiales y subterráneas)
III.1 Simulación del flujo del agua subterránea de la porción mexicana del acuífero Valle de Juárez-Bolsón del Hueco
III.2 New Conceptual Models of Groundwater Flow and Salinity in the Eastern Hueco Bolson Aquifer
III.3 Estimación de la transmisividad de un acuífero en un solo pozo
III.4 Assessment of water availability and water scarcity in an irrigated watershed using SWAT
III.5 Aspectos de modelación del balance hídrico y recarga para el acuífero Valle de Juárez, incorporando escenarios de eficiencias de riego, cultivos agrícolas y escenarios de recarga inducida
IV. Datos en red y mapas digitales
IV.1 Monitoring crops water use with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
IV.2 Una plataforma bilingüe basada en web para el modelado y la visualización de datos para la sustentabilidad de recursos hídricos
V. Special chapter: Conservation of shared groundwater resources in the binational Mesilla Basin-El Paso del Norte region – A hydrogeological perspective
The ‘Arrangement’ as Form of Life on the Mexico-Texas borderline: A Perspective on Smuggling, Efren Sandoval-Hernández
Temporary autonomous zones, control and security simulations: With regard to the Aguas Blancas (Argentina) – Bermejo (Bolivia) border, Brígida Renoldi
Tourists, Shoppers, and Smugglers: Brazilian Re- configurations of Circuits of Imported Goods, Fernando Rabossi
Vehicle Consumption, Theft and Smuggling in the Texas-Mexico Border, 1930–1960, Alberto Barrera-Enderle
Hazy Borders: Legality and Illegality across the US-Mexico Border, Alberto Hernández
Life and Labor on the Border: Working People of Northeastern Sonora, Mexico 1886-1986—open access link.
Articles, chapters, etc. by Josiah Heyman
does not exhaust the lessons to be learned from the US–Mexico border region. It also
displays highly unequal power relations. Adjacent, interactive, but profoundly asymmetrical border city pairs are key sites for analyzing unequal relationships between the so-called global South and global North. This social relationality of apparently contrastive endpoints, and the cultural frameworks and practices that mediate the connections, is yet another lesson from the US–Mexico border. Culture occurs in a matrix of often highly unequal social relationships. Culture is made and reproduced at relational meeting points between differentiated positionalities, even when there is an apparently exclusionary border in between.
Study focus: The future of water for the MRG and many other arid and semi-arid regions of the world is challenged by a changing climate, agricultural intensification, growing urban populations,and a segmented governance system in a transboundary setting. The core question for such settings is: how can water be managed so that competing agricultural, urban, and environmental sectors can realize a sustainable future? We synthesize results from interdisciplinary research aimed at “water futures”, considering possible, probable, and preferable outcomes from the known drivers of change in the MRG in a stakeholder participatory mode. We accomplished
this by developing and evaluating scenarios using a suite of scientifically rigorous computer models, melded with the input from diverse stakeholders.
New hydrological insights for the region: Under likely scenarios without significant interventions, relatively cheap and easy to access water will be depleted in about 40 years. Interventions to mitigate this outcome will be very costly. A new approach is called for based on “adaptive cooperation” among sectors and across jurisdictions along four important themes: information sharing, water conservation, greater development and use of alternative water sources, and new limits to water allocation/withdrawals coupled with more flexibility in uses.
out conceptually. We should not lose track of racism in doing a capitalism- focused analysis. This synthetic chapter addresses both the expansion outward across borders of the search for cheap labor in production, and the ambivalent and conflictive politics of migration inward across borders.
this phrasing refers to the increased effort needed to access and process water. An example is desalination. “Costly” is a characteristic consequence of resorting to more difficult ways to supply water. These changes occur in the context of climate change, which in some cases reduces river flows. They also occur in the context of fresh groundwater depletion, meaning that nearby, inexpensive resources cannot meet demand. Water will not simply run out in most cases, but rather replacement supplies will be more costly and difficult.
Reduced river flows and groundwater depletion as a result of climate change and population growth have increased the effort and difficulty accessing and processing water. In turn, residential water costs from municipal utilities are predicted to rise to unaffordable rates for poor residential water customers. Building on a regional conjunctive use model with future climate scenarios and 50-year future water supply plans, our study communicates the effects of climate change on poor people in El Paso, Texas, as water becomes more difficult and expensive to obtain in future years. Four scenarios for future water supply and future water costs were delineated based on expected impacts of climate change and groundwater depletion. Residential water use was calculated by census tract in El Paso, using basic needs indoor water use and evaporative cooling use as determinants of household water consumption. Based on household size and income data from the US Census, fraction of household income spent on water was determined. Results reveal that in the future, basic water supply will be a significant burden for 40% of all households in El Paso. Impacts are geographically concentrated in poor census tracts. Our study revealed that negative impacts from water resource depletion and increasing populations in El Paso will lead to costly and difficult water for El Paso water users. We provide an example of how to connect future resource scenarios, including those affected by climate change, to challenges of affordability for vulnerable consumers.
the second one (1940–1960) indicates the extent to which office work stood out over manual work. Finally, the third stage (1960–1980) shows processes of language rationalisation, which entailed attempts to standardise positions based on required skill sets.
This report addresses unmet drinking water and wastewater needs—as well as related issues of stormwater, watershed and wetlands management—for millions of Americans along the U.S. border with Mexico. This region includes the counties immediately adjacent to the U.S.–Mexico border or located partially within the zone that extends 60 miles (100 kilometers [km]) north of the international boundary. This area is the poorest region of the country, with per capita incomes, health outcomes and education levels well below the national average. Approximately 10 million U.S. residents, mainly Hispanic, live in this region, including approximately 800,000 individuals in colonias and rural areas. About 400,000 Native Americans, 300,000 colonias and rural residents, and more than a million people in cities adjacent to the international boundary are underserved in terms of water and wastewater infrastructure and services. The intersection of poverty, ethnicity, and lack of
basic water and sanitary services has created persistent inequities and an environmental and public health crisis along the southern border.
The Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB) recognizes the progress that federal agencies and their partners at the tribal and state levels have made in addressing unmet water and wastewater infrastructure needs and related watershed and wetlands issues. This momentum has accelerated with significant new infrastructure funding from Congress and a renewed focus by federal agencies on underserved populations throughout the United States and in the border region. However, continued attention by federal agencies is necessary, especially to benefit smaller communities with limited resources and communities on the international boundary that are impacted by transborder sewage flows.
Recommendations of the 20th Report
GNEB provides the following 10 recommendations for general and specific federal actions throughout this report:
1. Continue to expand federal partnerships to make water and wastewater infrastructure funding and other water-related funding accessible to marginalized and underserved border communities as a priority of the
administration and federal agencies. Proactive outreach by collaborating federal agencies is essential for reaching rural, peri-urban and tribal communities that have been left behind with previous efforts. Funding
must include grants, as well as support for operations and maintenance.
2. Provide targeted technical assistance to aid and expedite underserved border communities, including tribal governments, to take advantage of the resources provided by such federal investments as the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 and other sources that include funding for water and wastewater projects and watershed
and wetlands management. For example, BIL incorporates a requirement that 49 percent of certain federal funds provided to states through the Drinking Water Revolving Funds and Clean Water Revolving Funds must
be distributed as grants or 100 percent principal forgiveness loans. The federal government should work with border communities and border states so that state grants and loans with 100 percent principal forgiveness are
directed to underserved communities, many of which are border communities. The administration should also evaluate whether additional grant funds can be made available to poor communities, particularly because BIL funding will extend only through fiscal year (F Y ) 2026.
3. Develop a grant program to assist border communities with ongoing operations and maintenance of public water systems. The Drinking Water Revolving Funds and the Clean Water Revolving Funds are focused
primarily on construction of infrastructure and cannot be used for ongoing operations and maintenance of systems, but these costs are prohibitive for many poor communities. Amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow irrigation districts to be eligible for funding similar to public water systems that receive Drinking Water Revolving Fund monies. Many poor communities obtain domestic water through irrigation districts, and the expansion of eligible entities for funding with respect to the drinking water service they provide will aid in the distribution of funds to rural and underserved populations.
4. Provide guidance to clarify that authorized uses of Clean Water Revolving Funds include measures to manage, reduce, treat or recapture stormwater, as well as development and implementation of certain watershed pilot projects. The administration should clarify that under these provisions, Clean Water Revolving Funds may be used to develop green infrastructure for urban stormwater collection and runoff and watershed restoration.
5. Provide funding to the International Boundary and Water Commission (I B W C ) for the levees and flood infrastructure on the border that only I B W C has the jurisdiction and responsibility to repair and maintain.
6. Provide guidance to clarify that authorized uses of BIL funding to state and local governments for levees and dam repair also include other flood infrastructure and ongoing sediment removal.
7. Convene a task force of the relevant federal, state, local and international agencies to devise a long-term institutional solution for chronic and predictable environmental problems, such as cross-border flows
of contaminated water and sewage. The charge of the task force should include redefining the roles of agencies and developing long-term funding streams. The North American Development Bank (NADBank) should be central to these discussions, along with I B W C , the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and relevant Mexican agencies. A key goal of this effort should be the ability to plan and prioritize water and wastewater infrastructure and related needs based on science-based transborder analysis. U.S. communities located on the international boundary face ongoing flows of wastewater and stormwater from Mexico that affect quality of life and compromise public health. The current reactive approach to these problems does not work because solutions are often delayed a decade or more, populations are continuing to grow, and the costs are much higher than necessary.
8. Fund the U.S.–Mexico Border Water Infrastructure Program (B W I P ) at the $100 million level in the years to come to address the water and wastewater infrastructure deficit of border communities. On an annual basis,
Congress appropriates funding to EPA for B W I P , which is designed to fund the development, design and construction of water and wastewater infrastructure projects within the region 62 miles (100 km) north and
south of the U.S.–Mexico international boundary. In the mid-1990s, Congress appropriated $100 million on an annual basis from 1995–1997; however, from 2012–2016, Congress appropriated a mere $5 million annually. To date, B W I P has been very successful in channeling more than $700 million for basic water and sanitation infrastructure on both sides of the border. In addition, B W I P has been leveraged at a ratio of 2:1 by mobilizing local and state resources.
9. Provide a funding stream to I B W C for capital and repair projects that are critical for the health and safety of millions of border residents. The large backlog of projects includes the South Bay International Wastewater
Treatment Plant upgrade (potentially $910 million for plant expansion and rehabilitation); the Rio Grande Flood Control Project ($946 million for 158 miles [254 km] of levees, of which $70 million is for projects where a high levee failure risk exists); Tijuana River Levee Rehabilitation ($100 million for levee construction and sediment removal); and Amistad Dam Seepage Correction ($80–$276 million). These projects are not eligible for BIL financing. The administration, acting through the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Section of I B W C , should also negotiate a cost share with Mexico for the pending capital and repair projects. Congress should also approve the President’s budget request giving the U.S. Section of I B W C additional authorities to receive funds from federal and non-federal entities all along the U.S.–Mexico border, which is not currently permitted.
10. Direct I B W C and other agencies to initiate and continue as long as necessary discussions with U.S. and Mexican agencies to develop minutes to 1944’s Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande Treaty Between the United States of America and Mexico (1944 Water Treaty) for governance of each of the critically important transboundary aquifers. Long-term drought, decline of surface-water sources and growing demands for water are putting more pressure on aquifers that underlie the border. Critical transborder aquifers have experienced excessive pumping and deterioration of water quality due to intrusion of saline waters, threatening the water security of millions of border residents. Because U.S. border states control underground water in their jurisdictions and the Mexican federal government controls underground water in its jurisdiction, a comprehensive U.S.–Mexico ground water treaty is likely not achievable. To support this effort, GNEB recommends that the administration direct
available resources to continue the U.S.–Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program to properly characterize the international aquifers.
Contributors. Bridget Anderson, Deborah A. Boehm, Susan Bibler Coutin, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz, Sarah B. Horton, Josiah Heyman, Cecilia Menjívar, Juan Thomas Ordóñez, Doris Marie Provine, Nandita Sharma, Monica Varsanyi
The book, influenced by the work of Eric Wolf and senior editor Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez, centers on the greater Mexican North/U.S. Southwest, although the geographic range extends farther. This tradition, like other transborder approaches, attends to complex and fluid cultural and linguistic processes, going beyond the classical modern anthropological vision of one people, one culture, one language. With respect to recent approaches, however, it is more deeply social, focusing on vertical relations of power and horizontal bonds of mutuality.
Vélez-Ibáñez and Heyman envision this region as involving diverse and unequal social groups in dynamic motion over thousands of years. Thus the historical interaction of the U.S.-Mexico border, however massively unequal and powerful, is only the most recent manifestation of this longer history and common ecology. Contributors emphasize the dynamic "transborder" quality—conflicts, resistance, slanting, displacements, and persistence—in order to combine a critical perspective on unequal power relations with a questioning perspective on claims to bounded simplicity and perfection.
The book is notable for its high degree of connection across the various chapters, strengthened by internal syntheses from notable border scholars, including Robert R. Alvarez and Alejandro Lugo. In the final section, Judith Freidenberg draws general lessons from particular case studies, summarizing that "access to valued scarce resources prompts the erection of human differences that get solidified into borders," dividing and limiting, engendering vulnerabilities and marginalizing some people.
At a time when understanding the U.S.-Mexico border is more important than ever, this volume offers a critical anthropological and historical approach to working in transborder regions.
Contributors:
Amado Alarcón
Robert R. Álvarez
Miguel Díaz-Barriga
Margaret E. Dorsey
Judith Freidenberg
Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz
James Greenberg
Josiah Heyman
Jane H. Hill
Sarah Horton
Alejandro Lugo
Luminiţa-Anda Mandache
Corina Marrufo
Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri
Anna Ochoa O'Leary
Luis F. B. Plascencia
Lucero Radonic
Diana Riviera
Thomas E. Sheridan
Kathleen Staudt
Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez
I. Geoinformatics, LULC, and Physical Geography
I.1 Vulnerability of Irrigated Agriculture to a Drier Future in New Mexico's Mesilla and Rincon Valleys . . . . .
I.2 Impacto del cambio climático en el índice de áreas verdes para un futuro cercano 2030 en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
I.3 Cambios de coberturas y uso de suelo del río Bravo (1990-2015): temporal y espacial vs. NDVI .
I.4 Análisis de evolución piezométrica del acuífero Palomas-Guadalupe Victoria (0812) en la cuenca baja del río Casas Grandes, Ascensión, Chihuahua
II. Geopolítica y la colaboración binacional para la sustentabilidad hídrica
II.1 Transboundary Scientific Collaboration in Water Security Research: A Case Study on the U.S.-Mexico Border in the Paso del Norte Region
II.2 Gobernanza en la cuenca transfronteriza del río Bravo y el tratado de 1944. Análisis de la situación en el río Conchos: datos, hidrometría y estrategias
II.3 Advancing Transboundary Groundwater Resiliency Research through Systems Science
III. Modelación hidrológica (aguas superficiales y subterráneas)
III.1 Simulación del flujo del agua subterránea de la porción mexicana del acuífero Valle de Juárez-Bolsón del Hueco
III.2 New Conceptual Models of Groundwater Flow and Salinity in the Eastern Hueco Bolson Aquifer
III.3 Estimación de la transmisividad de un acuífero en un solo pozo
III.4 Assessment of water availability and water scarcity in an irrigated watershed using SWAT
III.5 Aspectos de modelación del balance hídrico y recarga para el acuífero Valle de Juárez, incorporando escenarios de eficiencias de riego, cultivos agrícolas y escenarios de recarga inducida
IV. Datos en red y mapas digitales
IV.1 Monitoring crops water use with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)
IV.2 Una plataforma bilingüe basada en web para el modelado y la visualización de datos para la sustentabilidad de recursos hídricos
V. Special chapter: Conservation of shared groundwater resources in the binational Mesilla Basin-El Paso del Norte region – A hydrogeological perspective
The ‘Arrangement’ as Form of Life on the Mexico-Texas borderline: A Perspective on Smuggling, Efren Sandoval-Hernández
Temporary autonomous zones, control and security simulations: With regard to the Aguas Blancas (Argentina) – Bermejo (Bolivia) border, Brígida Renoldi
Tourists, Shoppers, and Smugglers: Brazilian Re- configurations of Circuits of Imported Goods, Fernando Rabossi
Vehicle Consumption, Theft and Smuggling in the Texas-Mexico Border, 1930–1960, Alberto Barrera-Enderle
Hazy Borders: Legality and Illegality across the US-Mexico Border, Alberto Hernández
Life and Labor on the Border: Working People of Northeastern Sonora, Mexico 1886-1986—open access link.
does not exhaust the lessons to be learned from the US–Mexico border region. It also
displays highly unequal power relations. Adjacent, interactive, but profoundly asymmetrical border city pairs are key sites for analyzing unequal relationships between the so-called global South and global North. This social relationality of apparently contrastive endpoints, and the cultural frameworks and practices that mediate the connections, is yet another lesson from the US–Mexico border. Culture occurs in a matrix of often highly unequal social relationships. Culture is made and reproduced at relational meeting points between differentiated positionalities, even when there is an apparently exclusionary border in between.
Study focus: The future of water for the MRG and many other arid and semi-arid regions of the world is challenged by a changing climate, agricultural intensification, growing urban populations,and a segmented governance system in a transboundary setting. The core question for such settings is: how can water be managed so that competing agricultural, urban, and environmental sectors can realize a sustainable future? We synthesize results from interdisciplinary research aimed at “water futures”, considering possible, probable, and preferable outcomes from the known drivers of change in the MRG in a stakeholder participatory mode. We accomplished
this by developing and evaluating scenarios using a suite of scientifically rigorous computer models, melded with the input from diverse stakeholders.
New hydrological insights for the region: Under likely scenarios without significant interventions, relatively cheap and easy to access water will be depleted in about 40 years. Interventions to mitigate this outcome will be very costly. A new approach is called for based on “adaptive cooperation” among sectors and across jurisdictions along four important themes: information sharing, water conservation, greater development and use of alternative water sources, and new limits to water allocation/withdrawals coupled with more flexibility in uses.
out conceptually. We should not lose track of racism in doing a capitalism- focused analysis. This synthetic chapter addresses both the expansion outward across borders of the search for cheap labor in production, and the ambivalent and conflictive politics of migration inward across borders.
this phrasing refers to the increased effort needed to access and process water. An example is desalination. “Costly” is a characteristic consequence of resorting to more difficult ways to supply water. These changes occur in the context of climate change, which in some cases reduces river flows. They also occur in the context of fresh groundwater depletion, meaning that nearby, inexpensive resources cannot meet demand. Water will not simply run out in most cases, but rather replacement supplies will be more costly and difficult.
Reduced river flows and groundwater depletion as a result of climate change and population growth have increased the effort and difficulty accessing and processing water. In turn, residential water costs from municipal utilities are predicted to rise to unaffordable rates for poor residential water customers. Building on a regional conjunctive use model with future climate scenarios and 50-year future water supply plans, our study communicates the effects of climate change on poor people in El Paso, Texas, as water becomes more difficult and expensive to obtain in future years. Four scenarios for future water supply and future water costs were delineated based on expected impacts of climate change and groundwater depletion. Residential water use was calculated by census tract in El Paso, using basic needs indoor water use and evaporative cooling use as determinants of household water consumption. Based on household size and income data from the US Census, fraction of household income spent on water was determined. Results reveal that in the future, basic water supply will be a significant burden for 40% of all households in El Paso. Impacts are geographically concentrated in poor census tracts. Our study revealed that negative impacts from water resource depletion and increasing populations in El Paso will lead to costly and difficult water for El Paso water users. We provide an example of how to connect future resource scenarios, including those affected by climate change, to challenges of affordability for vulnerable consumers.
the second one (1940–1960) indicates the extent to which office work stood out over manual work. Finally, the third stage (1960–1980) shows processes of language rationalisation, which entailed attempts to standardise positions based on required skill sets.
concebidos como parte del proyecto binacional de Sustentabilidad de Recursos Hídricos entre México y Estados Unidos en la región de El Paso del Norte.
aquifer levels are declining and saline waters are intruding (Sheng 2013). These changes threaten both U.S. and Mexican regional economies, water and food security, and aquatic biodiversity (Hoekstra et al. 2012). While a uni!ed view of the entire basin water system is needed, it is largely missing. In view of these issues, it is imperative that scientists collaborate to better understand the situation and assess plausible paths forward. This requires crossing national and state political boundaries, in addition to integrating knowledge across social, biophysical, economic, and engineering disciplines.
Such transboundary-transdisciplinary scienti!c collaborations are exceedingly complex and challenging (Cundill et al. 2018; Mathieu et al. 2019; Steger et al. 2021). This article reports on a six-year collaborative scientific research effort, funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), that involved researchers from multiple disciplines from the U.S. and Mexico aimed at
improving the sustainability of water resources in the challenging Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Basin.
many migrants insecure, to deadly effect. Here I build on that insight. I propose that it occurs through processes of hiding of violence in the United States and displacement of violence into Mexico. Both sides are thus implicated in violence. A central argument at the core of my work (Heyman 2017) has been that at the U.S.–Mexico border, safety and wealth accumulate on the U.S. side, and poverty, risk, and insecurity on the Mexican, but they constitute one dynamic whole. This unifying pattern of uneven and combined development (Smith 1984) cuts across specific phenomena: money, drugs, guns, migration, etc.
La Red Nacional de Resiliencia covid-19 coordina una red estratégica estructurada para mitigar el impacto de la covid-19 en las poblaciones rura- les y de minorías raciales y étnicas. De diciembre de 2020 hasta mayo de 2021, las organizaciones comunitarias que movilizan a líderes de alcan- ce comunitario han logrado colaborar con tra- bajadores del sector alimenticio (trabajadores agrícolas y de plantas de productos lácteos y em- pacadores de carne) para proporcionar material cultural y lingüísticamente apropiado con información acerca del registro y el proceso de vacu- nación, así como de las clínicas a las que pueden asistir con el objetivo de protegerlos ante la pandemia de la covid-19. Presentamos aquí información cualitativa y cuantitativa recopilada a partir de un proyecto de divulgación con trabajadores del sector alimenticio, predominantemente his- panos, que viven en la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México o tienen vínculos con ella.
attempt to void. Currently, capital and commodities move
more freely than people. Walls create unequal mobility in
which privileged and functional workers pass. Those who
are not allowed to pass face the payment of large sums
and debt to human smugglers, and risk physical injury and
death in the dangerous journey around walls. Walls—and,
more widely, restrictions, checkpoints, and barriers—have
cut off normal social-cultural ties across regional and local
border communities that depend on informal mobility.
2 Limiting mobility chips away at human rights.
Enclosures set limits on basic and meaningful human
goals and needs: to gain a livelihood, seek asylum, or
avoid danger. But there is also a “domino effect” when
people do not even try to move through walls and other
barriers, despite fear of persecution and hope for a
better life. They recognize that the path to such hopes is
physically dangerous, and often lined with victimizers. The
accumulation of waiting people in camps and towns in the
midst of danger and extreme exploitation, and even the
trips never taken, despite compelling reasons, need much
more penetrating attention.
3 Walls politicize space. Symbolic or political drivers, such
as nativism, underlie and are the foundation of walls. The
discrepancy between offcial formal policy claims for a
supposed need of walls and the actual reality and results
of walls spotlight the political symbolism embedded in the
ideology of walls: An enclosed inside distinguished from
an “othered” outside, or a “threatening other” contained
from spilling out. Walls are often implemented after
periods of “crisis,” mostly national, but also class-based in
the case of gated communities. This includes the closure
that concentrates refugees and asylum seekers into camps
and settlements.
Cover photo:
The Berlin Wall.
Credit: Ievgen Skrypko, Adobe Stock
4 Walls are not limited to human-made physical
barriers. Obstacles to entry include checkpoints on
movement paths or belts of concentrated enforcement
near boundaries. New detection technologies, “virtual
walls,” identify moving people and conveyances, and
aim to inhibit them. Geographic obstacles, such as the
Mediterranean Sea or perilous deserts, may be used as
barriers by design. Walls are materialized forms of spatialsocial
exclusion, deployed unequally against some but not
all people.
5 Placing rigid barriers across the landscape obstructs
ecology. The result of such physical borders is a disruption
to breeding diversity for many moving animals; habitat
destruction through wall building itself; and rechanneling
or blocking the fow of surface water. These walls also
damage cultures tied to the free flow of ecology.
6 Walls have important effects on health. People are
harmed by actually trying to cross a border (sometimes
falling from the wall, or being shot at by border guards),
but walls also bar people from seeking out better
healthcare services.
•
Connection between displacement and borders/walls
•
Historical depth to structural means of inclusion/exclusion
•
Walls include/exclude and define parameters of belonging and rights/privileges
•
Violence – pervasive -overt and always a potential
•
Climate change and its impacts are going to trigger massive flows north (We haven’t done much on this topic, but it is certainly on the horizon)
•
North-South global divide – fortress north; global apartheid continues to take shape and adapt to changing circumstances
•
Unevenness in mobilities
•
Booming and lucrative industry around control over mobility from actual building of walls to surveillance technologies (i.e., vested interests are at work)
•
Documentary regimes – as an accompaniment to borders and walls from identity cards to passports to possible, impending health passports.
•
Environmental impact is serious
•
Human Rights violations – mobility as a human right; the right to seek asylum
-----
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there were only about 15 border or security walls in place, or under construction, globally. Today, there are more than 70 walls worldwide. Walls on nation-state borders are an increasingly prominent focus of modern life with far-reaching impacts on human culture and well-being, and the environment we live in. Border walls have always been political symbols and today transformations of these walls (such as "virtual walls") remain a hot topic of discussion. Border barriers are ever-present and continue to be implemented throughout the world. Our work touches on many diverse areas of concern: Mobility is a natural human behavior that walls
attempt to void. Currently, capital and commodities move
more freely than people. Walls create unequal mobility in
which privileged and functional workers pass. Those who
are not allowed to pass face the payment of large sums
and debt to human smugglers, and risk physical injury and
death in the dangerous journey around walls. Walls—and,
more widely, restrictions, checkpoints, and barriers—have
cut off normal social-cultural ties across regional and local
border communities that depend on informal mobility.
2 Limiting mobility chips away at human rights.
Enclosures set limits on basic and meaningful human
goals and needs: to gain a livelihood, seek asylum, or
avoid danger. But there is also a “domino effect” when
people do not even try to move through walls and other
barriers, despite fear of persecution and hope for a
better life. They recognize that the path to such hopes is
physically dangerous, and often lined with victimizers. The
accumulation of waiting people in camps and towns in the
midst of danger and extreme exploitation, and even the
trips never taken, despite compelling reasons, need much
more penetrating attention.
3 Walls politicize space. Symbolic or political drivers, such
as nativism, underlie and are the foundation of walls. The
discrepancy between offcial formal policy claims for a
supposed need of walls and the actual reality and results
of walls spotlight the political symbolism embedded in the
ideology of walls: An enclosed inside distinguished from
an “othered” outside, or a “threatening other” contained
from spilling out. Walls are often implemented after
periods of “crisis,” mostly national, but also class-based in
the case of gated communities. This includes the closure
that concentrates refugees and asylum seekers into camps
and settlements.
4 Walls are not limited to human-made physical
barriers. Obstacles to entry include checkpoints on
movement paths or belts of concentrated enforcement
near boundaries. New detection technologies, “virtual
walls,” identify moving people and conveyances, and
aim to inhibit them. Geographic obstacles, such as the
Mediterranean Sea or perilous deserts, may be used as
barriers by design. Walls are materialized forms of spatialsocial
exclusion, deployed unequally against some but not
all people.
5 Placing rigid barriers across the landscape obstructs
ecology. The result of such physical borders is a disruption
to breeding diversity for many moving animals; habitat
destruction through wall building itself; and rechanneling
or blocking the fow of surface water. These walls also
damage cultures tied to the free flow of ecology.
6 Walls have important effects on health. People are
harmed by actually trying to cross a border (sometimes
falling from the wall, or being shot at by border guards),
but walls also bar people from seeking out better
healthcare services.
photos of South Texas detention facilities overflowing with women and
children (Darby, 2014). The headline, “Leaked Photos Reveal Children
Warehoused in Crowded U.S. Cells, Border Patrol Overwhelmed,”
demonstrates the role of contestation in shaping border policies. The
photos show dirty cells, full of young children and women, often sleeping on the floor or with standing room only. While the surface message
was apparently humanitarian, the evident agenda was to mobilize fear
about a migrant invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border (henceforth, the
“border”). Although the source of the photos was anonymous, it must
have been taken by someone inside the Border Patrol or Immigration
and Customs Enforcement since photography is not allowed and few
people gain access to processing centers (hence, the term “leaked”).
Reported by Brandon Darby, a controversial FBI informant who infiltrated the 2008 Republican National Convention and sent two protestors there to jail, the article has limited text, but asserts that “thousands
of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas.” This publicity sparked an important turn to
strengthening border enforcement and provided a nationally significant
political symbol, both at the time and in the 2016 election. Understand ing the full impact of this event and the surrounding maelstrom of
humanitarian and anti-immigrant responses to the increase in Central
American refugee families requires a holistic and multiscalar analysis of
contending actors and how they changed and reproduced that which
we call the “border.”
anthropology as an image for conveying theoretical abstractions. Instead, the paper
outlines a focused model of political economy on the border. It delineates
territorialized state processes, deterritorialized capital processes, and sets of social
relationships and cultural practices characteristic of this region. To be honest, the paper does not address political ecology.
Cette article critique l'usage de l'image de la frontière entre le Méxique et les Etats-
Unis d'Amérique comme métaphore qui transmet des abstractions théoriques dans le
domain de l'antropologie culturelle. De plus, l'article esquisse un modèle frontalier
qui met l'accent sur l'économie politique frontalière. Il délimite le processus de
territorialization d'état, de detérritorialization du capital, des rapports sociaux, et des
pratiques culturelles caractéristiques de cette région.
Este artículo critica el uso del imagen fronteriza que se encuentra en la region entre
México y los Estados Unidos para levar abstracciones teoréticas en anthropología.
En lugar de ese imagen, el presente argumento delinéa un modelo de economía
política en que la región fronteriza delimita procesos del estado, procesos de
teritoriales capitalistas, y conjuntos de relaciones sociales y comportamientos
culturales que son característicos de la región. De verdad, este articulo no es ecología
política.