Migration and Development? The Gendered Costs of Migration on Mexico's Rural “Left Behind”

Abstract

Governments, civil society, and policymakers assert the potential of international migration to foster development and alleviate poverty. Often such claims are rooted in macroscale geopolitical analyses of migration and development, which mask the localized, uneven, and embodied ways family members “left behind” bear the costs and subsidize the U.S./Mexico (inter)national integration project. Informed by feminist geopolitics, this article demonstrates how the left behind disproportionately bear the hidden costs of neoliberal restructuring and migration. We draw upon Mexican Migration Project () ethnosurvey data to frame the narratives of migrant family members left behind. Narratives were constructed through in‐depth interviews conducted in rural Veracruz. We conclude that in the absence of geographically specific examinations of the hidden costs associated with neoliberal development and migration it is possible that “migration for development” programs and policies may exacerbate inequities that will perpetuate migration and further weaken Mexican origin communities.

Key words:

• gender
• left behind
• Mexico
• migration
• neoliberal

Notes

1. As the author (2015) has noted prior, the term “left behind” is problematic as it overgeneralizes weak agency among those who remain by implying that they have no choice or decision‐making power. It also connotes a “leaving” or “abandoning” on the part of migrants, which can seem to pass moral judgment or ascribe blame. While acknowledging these shortcomings, we employ the term in this article, as it is commonly understood amongst scholars and policy makers working with this topic.

2. For further discussion of migration, mobility, and geopolitics, see Hyndman 2001.

3. This refers to a member of an ejido—a communal, agricultural land‐owning structure in Mexico.

4. The Mexican Migration Project (MMP), based out of Princeton and headed by Douglas Massey and Jorge Durand, has employed a household ethnosurvey to collect migration information in Mexican sending communities since 1982. As is common practice, we funded MMP specialists to administer the ethnosurvey in our study community (Tierra Azul) according to their established protocols. This data has entered the public MMP database without identifiers for use by other researchers. For methodological details see the MMP web site: http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu/databases/studydesign-en.aspx

5. We use pseudonyms to protect the anonymity of the community and study participants.

6. For more detailed discussion of Mexican neoliberal rural restructuring during this period, which included withdrawal of state support, NAFTA, and privatization, see Martin (2005) and Groenewald and Van Den Berg (2012).

Additional information

Funding

National Science Foundation Geography and Spatial Sciences Program

Austin Harrington Faculty Fellows Program

College of Liberal Arts (COLA)

Notes on contributors

Rebecca M. Torres

Dr. R. M. Torres is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment at The University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street Austin, TX 78712 USA; [[email protected]].

Lindsey Carte

Dr. L. Carte is an Assistant Professor at the Núcleo de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades at the Universidad de la Frontera, Francisco Salazar 1145, Temuco, IX Región, Chile; [[email protected]].