Contents

1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 370

1.1 PlacingtheBorderinContext.............................................................................................

2 Border Imaginaries and Everyday Living............................................................................... 374

3 Border Inspections and Rights' Violations: A Way of Life................................................. 374

4 Insecurity, Instability, and Violence Containment............................................................... 376

5 “Necropolitics” in “Warlike” Border Zones......................................................................... 377

6 Normalized Death: Everyday Living in Juarez and Other Possibilities............................ 378

7 Transmigrant Death: To Migrate or Die in the Homeland................................................... 379

8 Dying a “Social” Death: Children and Youth Living Clandestinely................................. 381

9 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 382

References......................................................................................................................................... 383

Abstract

This chapter examines the USA-Mexico border as a case study for investigating fear and violence, violence containment measures, and vulnerability for youth living in and migrating through international border zones. It argues that glob­alization, “national security,” and border surveillance regimes exacerbate struc­tural violence associated with failed economic policies, “drug war(s) policies,” and poverty and government corruption which negatively impact young people. Youth, who enjoy limited access to human rights protections, find themselves trapped between remaining in home countries overrun by cartel violence and ravaged by poverty and “choosing” life-threatening migration to the USA.

C. Bejarano (*)

The Interdisciplinary Studies Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA e-mail: cbejaran@nmsu.edu

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017

C. Harker et al. (eds.), Conflict, Violence and Peace, Geographies of Children and

YoungPeople 11, DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-038-4_10 narrowed options for their own survival. Cultural nationalism, racism, xenopho­bia, and the militarization of the border punctuate the economic crises that make membership in gangs, cartels, and the shadow world of drug and human traf­ficking viable “options” for some. Through an analysis of these structural conditions and global forces, this chapter additionally assesses specific examples wherein youth on both sides of the border confront state violence, economic marginalization, and myriad “deaths.” A macro-level approach combined with microlevel examples signals both the precarious existences of youth on the border and offers a modicum of hope that young people will survive a geography of uncertainty, dislocation, and fear.

Keywords

USA-Mexico border • Border violence • Violence containment • Drug wars • Migration • Undocumented youth

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