‘Nacimos de la nada’: border struggles and maternal politics in Mexico

Abstract

Since 2006, at least 70,000 transit migrants from Central America have gone ‘missing’ in Mexico. This has led to political mobilizations of pro-migrant groups throughout Central America and Mexico. Within this movement for migrants’ rights, motherist groups like the ‘Caravan of Central American mothers’ of missing migrants stand out. These groups demand rights to know what happened with their missing relatives. I argue that motherist groups are mobilizing motherhood ‘as a site of political agency.’ This paper analyses the actors, strategies, and practices of the ‘Caravan of Central American mothers,’ a yearly public march through Mexico, by using a non-formal and feminist concept of citizenship as well as the idea of ‘maternal politics.’ I do so in order to show that within the current border struggles, motherhood may turn into a radical and political subjectivity. The analytical focus on the role that motherhood plays in migrant and pro-migrant activism may expand our awareness about the gendered nature of citizenship and ways of being political.

Keywords:

• Border struggles
• gendered forms of citizenship
• missing migrants
• Central America/Mexico

Notes

1. See Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MovimientoMigranteMesoamericano/?fref=ts, Homepage Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano: https://movimientomigrantemesoamericano.org/, Cofamipro on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cofamipro-Comite-de-Familiares-de-Migrantes-Desaparecidos-del-Progreso-107037279389677/ and Tweed: #NosHacenFaltaTodos.

2. See e.g. Bosniak (2008), Hindess (2004), Mau (2010), Mezzadra (2004), Nyers (2011), Rancière (2004), Rygiel (2010), Salter (2003), Squire (2011) and Stevens (2009).

3. With respect to Gender and transnational Migration see for example Levitt (2001), Raghuram and Piper (2011); and for Mexico and the USA Goldring (2001) and Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994).

4. See for transnationalism and feminism e.g. Grewal and Kaplan (1994).

5. Regarding the politicization of motherhood in transnational migration, see also Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994), Goldring (2001).

6. There are similar organizations of relatives of missing migrants in El Salvador, such as COFAMIDE (see http://cofamide.blogspot.de/). COFAMIDE, however, is not active in the web anymore. The latest actualization of the Homepage was in 2009.

7. See https://www.facebook.com/Cofamipro-Comite-de-Familiares-de-Migrantes-Desaparecidos-del-Progreso-107037279389677/.

8. This image was replaced by another one showing a member of ‘Las Patronas’ at the end of January 2016 (see https://www.facebook.com/MovimientoMigranteMesoamericano/?fref=ts); See the YouTube-clip ‘Una madre nunca se cansa de buscar’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqSIc_k4V4&feature=youtu.be.

9. See e.g. testimonial of the mother of Álvaro Emilio Maradiaga Carrillo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQYRVMPRK_k; message of mothers to the pontific demanding support in the search for their relatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OZMjMWlKt8.

10. Regarding the importance of the WSF as a node for the new social movements, new transnational actors, and new spaces of politics see e.g. Taylor (2004).

11. See https://movimientomigrantemesoamericano.org/2015/12/18/que-lejos-estoy-del-lugar-de-donde-soy/.

12. La Rebelión, April 4, 2015.