Close encounters of the deadly kind: Gender, migration, and border (in)security Cover Image

Close encounters of the deadly kind: Gender, migration, and border (in)security
Close encounters of the deadly kind: Gender, migration, and border (in)security

Author(s): Anna Ochoa O'Leary
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Security and defense, Migration Studies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: migrants; women; border; crossing; deaths;

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I discuss several findings of my study of migrant women, temporarily suspended in the “intersection” of diametrically opposed processes: those posed by border enforcement measures and those posed by transnational mobility. A pressing issue that emerged from this research was how close women come to encountering death as they side-step the border wall to cross without authorization into the US. Their testimonies shed light on how the intersection of contradictory processes contributes to a humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border in which the likelihood of death is increasingly present.

  • Issue Year: 5/2008
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 111-121
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: English