Migrant caravans in Mexico: a new form of self-defence and transmigration

Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals_122
Publication date: 09/2019
Author:
Amarela Varela Huerta, profesora e investigadora, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM) y Lisa McLean, investigadora predoctoral, George Mason University
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 This paper presents the progress of ongoing research into the migrant caravans in Mexico or the exoduses of displaced Central Americans taking place since 2011, but which intensified in 2018. Their presence challenges the grammar of narrating and practising specific forms of migration governmentality, while at the same time forming a kind of migrant self-defence or insurrection, whose main characteristics are walking en masse, without coyotes or legal permission, and along paths controlled by migration agents colluding with organised crime who continue to exercise an “indirect private government”. In short, this paper is a reflection on the results obtained from the ongoing research, which is mainly genealogical and historical in nature.

Keywords: migrant caravans, exodus, migrant insurrection, Mexico, United States, Central America

DOI: doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2019.122.2.163

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How to cite this article:
Varela Huerta, Amarela y McLean, Lisa. «Caravanas de migrantes en México: nueva forma de autodefensa y transmigración». Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, n.º 122 (septiembre de 2019), p. 163-185. DOI: doi.org/10.24241/rcai.2019.122.2.163