Enforcing the Borders in the Nuevo South: Gender and Migration in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the Research Triangle, North Carolina
Author: Deeb-Sossa, Natalia
Date Published: 2008
The authors of this research document build on Anzaldua's conceptualization of 'borderlands' to analyze how borders of social memberships are constructed and enforced in 'el Nuevo South.' Gender analysis reveals that intersecting structural conditions--the labor market, the organizations of public space, and the institutional organization of health care and other public services--combine with gendered processes in the home and family to regulate women's participation in community life. Enforcers of borders include institutional actors, mostly women, in social services and clinics who occupy institutional locations that enable them to define who is entitled to public goods and to categorize migrants as undeserving 'others.' The document reveals how a configured matrix of domination transcends the spheres of home, work, and community to constrain women migrants' physical and economic mobility and personal autonomy and to inhibit their participation in their societies of reception.
Date Published: 2008
The authors of this research document build on Anzaldua's conceptualization of 'borderlands' to analyze how borders of social memberships are constructed and enforced in 'el Nuevo South.' Gender analysis reveals that intersecting structural conditions--the labor market, the organizations of public space, and the institutional organization of health care and other public services--combine with gendered processes in the home and family to regulate women's participation in community life. Enforcers of borders include institutional actors, mostly women, in social services and clinics who occupy institutional locations that enable them to define who is entitled to public goods and to categorize migrants as undeserving 'others.' The document reveals how a configured matrix of domination transcends the spheres of home, work, and community to constrain women migrants' physical and economic mobility and personal autonomy and to inhibit their participation in their societies of reception.
