Blood and Borders: Geographies of Social Reproduction in Ciudad Juárez–El Paso

Abstract

Each week, thousands of Mexican nationals living in northern Mexican border cities cross the border into the United States with nonimmigrant visas to “donate” blood plasma at commercial collection centers in exchange for a prepaid Visa gift card (valued at up to US$50). For these individuals, many of whom work on maquiladora assembly lines, a single donation can nearly double their weekly wages. If the ability to keep wages low remains a key means of leveraging the border’s competitiveness in the global economy, we argue that the devaluation of maquiladora labor in fact relies on the capacity of communities and households to increasingly absorb the hidden costs of social reproduction. Grounded in two years of ethnographic research in Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, this article argues that plasma donation is an increasingly vital strategy through which Mexican households meet the costs of social reproduction. Further, participation in the cross-border plasma economy is inseparable from institutions and frameworks that govern border crossing. By following the movement of Mexican blood plasma across the border, it becomes possible to understand how the border itself—as a material barrier and geopolitical project—shapes collective capacities for social reproduction.

每个星期, 数以千计居住在墨西哥北部边境城市的墨西哥人越界进入美国, 持非移民签证在商业采血点“捐献”血浆, 以换取至多 50 美元的Visa预付礼品卡。其中的很多人, 工作在属于美国公司的墨西哥保税组装线上。对于这些人, 一次献血几乎可以使他（她）们每周的收入翻倍。在全球化经济里, 如果维持低水平工资的能力是调节边境竞争力的主要方式, 我们认为, 保税加工劳动力的贬值, 其实依赖于社区和家庭持续消化社会再生产的隐性代价的能力。基于在墨西哥 Ciudad Juárez 和美国 El Paso 为期两年的人种学研究, 本文认为, 捐献血浆是一种越来越重要的策略, 墨西哥家庭籍此来应对社会再生产的费用。越界血浆经济的参与, 是同越界治理的体制和框架密不可分的。跟踪墨西哥血浆的越界运动, 可以理解边界本身（物质性障碍和地缘政治工程）如何塑造社会再生产的群体能力。

Miles de mexicanos residentes en las ciudades de la frontera septentrional de su país la cruzan todas las semanas hacia los Estados Unidos con visas de no inmigrantes para “donar” sangre en los centros comerciales receptores a cambio de una tarjeta de Visa regalo prepagada (tasada en alrededor de $50 dólares). Para estos individuos, muchos de los cuales trabajan en las líneas de montaje de las plantas textiles, lo recibido por una sola donación puede casi doblar su salario semanal. Si la capacidad de mantener bajos los salarios se mantiene como un medio clave para balancear la competitividad fronteriza dentro de la economía global, nosotros sostenemos que la devaluación del trabajo en las plantas textiles descansa de hecho en la capacidad de las comunidades y los hogares de absorber cada vez más los costos ocultos de la reproducción social. A partir de dos años de investigación etnográfica en Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, este artículo argumenta que la donación de plasma es una estrategia crecientemente importante a través de la cual las familias mexicanas solventan los costos de la reproducción social. Más todavía, la participación en la economía fronteriza de plasma es inseparable de las instituciones y marcos que gobiernan el cruce fronterizo. Siguiendo el movimiento del plasma sanguíneo mexicano a través de la frontera, se hace posible entender cómo el propio límite––como barrera material y proyecto geopolítico––configura las capacidades colectivas de reproducción social.

Key Words:

• economic geography
• feminist political economy
• labor
• social reproduction
• U.S.–Mexico border

关键词：:

• 经济地理
• 女权政治经济学
• 劳动力
• 社会再生产
• 美墨边界。

Palabras clave::

• economía política feminista
• frontera EE.UU.–México
• geografía económica
• reproducción social
• trabajo

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Emily Rosenman, Jamie Peck, Gerry Pratt, Mateo Crossa, and Gabriel Solis for their critical readings of earlier versions of this article. We also thank the organizers and participants of “The Financial Lives of Social Reproduction” sessions at the 2018 American Association of Geographers, and the students of Geography 520 (2019) for their insightful comments. Finally, our thanks go to three anonymous reviewers whose constructive and generative feedback greatly improved the arguments in this article and Nik Heynen for his editorial guidance and original interest in the article. Both authors contributed equally to this article. Any remaining mistakes are ours alone.

Notes

1 It is difficult to estimate precise numbers of Mexican donors, because donor data are proprietary. Plasma center site selection, however, includes analysis of the surrounding geographic market, including Mexico.

2 Plasma donation is ubiquitous across the United States, and its use by low-income individuals and families has been extensively documented (e.g., Greenberg 2019). The uneven relations that we document on the U.S.–Mexico border are not exceptional; rather, the way they work themselves out in each place is specific and remains to be investigated.

3 This figure refers to the export value of all human and animal blood products. Plasma products are a significant contributor.

4 For theorization of the “violent and complex inclusionary practices” (D. Gonzalez 2019) of borders and capitalism, see Berndt and Boeckler (2011), De Lara (2018), and Mezzadra and Neilson (2013).

5 From observation of a presentation in summer 2019 in Ciudad Juárez, given by a local nonprofit showcasing the results of their survey of 2,000 Juarenses.

6 Fronterizx is a gender-neutral term for border dweller.

7 See Wright (2017) for critical interrogation of this narrative.

8 See Heyman (2012) and Staudt (2017) for discussion of mechanisms of wage suppression.

9 Although the gendered demographics of assembly line work have shifted, the feminization and devaluation of this labor persists (Berndt 2018).

10 The theoretical insights from these analyses are often conflated with an empirical focus on gender relations. Although recognizing the importance of gender to the production–reproduction nexus, we engage with the broader contribution of this literature with respect to social difference and reproductive labor.

11 For a review, see Winders and Smith (2019).

12 The development of the border plasma industry coincided with the expansion of commercial plasma collection in U.S. prisons and inner cities and in countries like Haiti and Nicaragua (Starr 1998).

13 Also see Kraut (1994) and Sunderg and Kaserman (2007) for discussions of discourses linking Mexicans and Mexican Americans to (racial) contamination.

14 Repeat donors who have already passed this screening process have their vitals, protein, and hemoglobin checked; a physical is performed once annually.

15 The form of nonimmigrant visas most often used by Juarenses crossing to sell plasma is a border crossing card that allows the holder to stay in the United States for up to seventy-two hours and within twenty-five miles of the border without any additional permits.

16 Although there are no official data on how many residents of Ciudad Juárez hold nonimmigrant visas, there are indications that only a relatively small number of Juarenses have the ability to cross the border northward. The El Paso Community Foundation’s 2018 survey of 1,500 residents of Ciudad Juárez found that only 10 percent of survey participants had access to nonimmigrant visas.

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful for the support of the Public Scholars Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

Notes on contributors

Nina Ebner

NINA EBNER is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include feminist political economy, critical development studies, and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. She also believes strongly in the importance of collaborative research and is involved with grassroots efforts to end migrant detention and to create more sustainable economic futures for border residents.

Kelsey Mae Johnson

KELSEY MAE JOHNSON is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include race, capitalism, and bioeconomies.