Engendering Mexican Migration: Articulating Gender, Regions, Circuits:

Prospectus for Special Issue
Latin American Perspectives
Prospectus by Dr. María B. Castellanos

In recent years, scholars have identified the need to "engender" theories of global movement, making gender central to any analysis of migration, regionally and transnationally. The study of migration as a gendered and social process challenges the continued emphasis on structural factors, such as economics and politics, as the primary motivating rationale for migration, the central narrative of the migrant as male, and the recent inclusion of women's migration experiences as merely an additional variable in migration. To engender theories of migration means to look at the interaction between gender and political economy (class formation, settlement, state formation, etc.). In addition, introducing gender as a critical category of analysis urges researchers to go beyond a descriptive and documentary approach to explore how social constructions of womanhood and manhood are altered according to (im)migrant needs, expectations, and projects, and their implications for social relationships within immigrant and natal communities. Considering that recently proposed U.S. immigration laws, such as Proposition 187, and the changes to welfare reform attempt to control the reproductive and physical bodies of immigrant women and children, understanding the role gender plays in the construction of the "immigrant," the "alien," and the "refugee" is critical to shaping public policy.

While a gendered analysis has been used to think critically about Caribbean transnational migration, few studies examine how migration is gendered among Mexican (im)migrants. Such inquiry seems particularly important because of the substantial numbers of individuals migrating within Mexico, and given that Mexican nationals make up the largest group of documented and undocumented immigrants to the United States. This volume explores the articulation of gender and (im)migration on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border, especially in the context of family, work, and political activism. Studies centered on gender can contribute significantly to (im)migration research, underscoring the inextricable ties between gender subjectivities and global movement.

For this issue of Latin American Perspectives, we invite submissions that deal both with the ways gender subjectivities interact with Mexican migration patterns, and the ways daily practices, social relations, economic opportunities, and political participation are altered in both men and women's lives as a result of migration. The articles in this volume should consider gender to be a fluid and relational construct rooted in specific experiences, regional differences, and racial ideologies. We encourage authors to pay particular attention to transforming gender subjectivities, exploring how migration is structured by cultural constructs of female and male, and in turn, how such movement impacts gender relations and notions of femininity and masculinity. This volume explores how attitudes and practices of gender and gender relations may or may not shift in the context of Mexican migration. Finally, this volume aims to compare particular migrant circuits, as well as highlight different regions of Mexico and the United States, in an effort to understand how migration is gendered and experienced differently across space, class, ethnicity, and legal status.

The following themes outline the general areas of interest of this volume.

1. Gender and the Politics of (Im)migration: Mexican migration has generated a large body of scholarship aimed at understanding the motivations for migration, the immigrant experience, the implications of the Latino vote, immigration laws, the right to vote abroad, undocumented migration, the Bracero Program, etc. Few of these works engage the politics of (im)migration through a gendered perspective. We seek papers that examine how the concepts of citizenship and illegality are gendered and what such an approach reveals about political participation and exclusion.

2. Gender Subjectivities: Migration can transform, challenge, and reify constructs of femininity and masculinity within Mexican communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The performance of gender can become the means for expressing resistance and redefining manhood and womanhood in local contexts and across transnational borders. We seek papers that historicize these changes in gender subjectivities.

3. Engendering Class Transformations: The increasing presence of Mexican (im)migrants in the U.S. labor force exposes migrants to new ethnic groups and forms of capitalist discipline. As (im)migrants experience a shift in class identities and as more women participate in the service economy, what happens to social constructions of gender in the workplace? How are these class transformations and identities racialized?

4. Gender, Ethnicity, and the Nation-State: The role of the state in shaping immigrant policy and law is well studied. What role does the state play in shaping policies that exclude or include (im)migrants seeking access to housing, health care, and other social services? How are these policies gendered? Finally, how does this gendering of state policies shape (im)migrant projects?

Dr. María B. Castellanos is coordinating this issue.
For more information about the issue, please contact:
Dr. María B. Castellanos: mcastel@socsci.ucsd.edu
or Hinda Seif: hmseif@ucdavis.edu

Manuscripts should be no longer than 25 pages of double-spaced text in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. If possible, submit two copies along with a cover sheet and basic biographical information. With these items, we also require that the manuscript be sent on a CD-R, by e-mail, or on a floppy disk if the other formats are not available. The LAP style guide is available on request or online.

Please send any manuscript submissions to:
Managing Editor, Latin American Perspectives¸ P.O. Box 5703, Riverside, California 92517-5703