Place making in Non-places
Migrant Graffiti in Rural Highway Box Culverts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31830Keywords:
Graffiti, non-places, place-making, undocumented migration, U.S.-Mexico borderAbstract
This paper describes particular material phenomenon resulting from the mass movement of undocumented migrants across the border from Mexico into Arizona, with a particular focus on migrant graffiti panels found hidden beneath rural highways. I use Marc Auge’s (2006) conceptualization of ‘non-places’ as a framework for seeking to understand the meaning behind the material impact of clandestine and undocumented migration alongside and underneath the otherwise sterile spaces of official mass transit. This paper interrogates the weight and meaning behind the actions of so-called ‘illegitimate’ or ‘illegal’ migrant travelers as they build history and create a sense of place in the non-places of the borderlands, all while evading the United States border security.
References
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____. 2013. “Undocumented Migration, Use Wear, and the Materiality of Habitual Suffering in the Sonoran Desert.” Journal of Material Culture 18 (4): 321–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183513496489
____. 2015. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland: University of California Press.
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Glüsing, J. 2005. “Praying to Allah in Mexico: Islam Is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas.” Der Spiegel, 28 May. Available online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/praying-to-allah-in-mexico-islam-is-gaining-a-foothold-in-chiapas-a-358223.html
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Gonzalez-Ruibal, A. 2008. “Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity.” Current Anthropology 49 (2): 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1086/526099
____. 2013. “Modernism.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, edited by P. Graves-Brown, R. Harrison and A. A. Piccini, 306–320. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Graeber, D. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Press.
Hagan, J. M. 2008. Migration Miracles: Faith, Hope and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harrison, R. and J. Schofield. 2010. After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hernández, A. 2014. Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers. New York: Verso.
Heyman, J. M. 2001. “Class and Classification at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Human Organization 60 (2): 128–140. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.60.2.de2cb46745pgfrwh
____. 2014. “‘Illegality’ and the U.S.-Mexico Border: How It Is Produced and Resisted.” In Constructing Illegality in America: Immigrant Experiences, Critiques, and Resistance, edited by C. Menjívar and D. Kanstroom, 111–137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hirsch, E. and M. O’Hanlon, eds. 1995. The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Kearney, M. 2004. “The Classifying and Value-Filtering Missions of Borders.” Anthropological Theory 4 (2): 131–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499604042811
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Magaña, R. 2008. “Bodies on the Line: Life, Death and Authority on the Arizona-Mexico Border.” PhD Diss., University of Chicago.
Marco, L. K. 2002. “¿El Islam En Chiapas?: El. EZLN Y El Movimiento Mundial Murabitun.” Revista Académica Para El Estudio de Las Religiones 4: 79–91.
Martínez, D. 2015. “Coyote Use in an Era of Heightened Border Enforcement: New Evidence from the Arizona-Sonora Border.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (1): 1–17.
____., R. Reineke, R. Rubio-Goldsmith, B. E. Anderson, G. Hess and B. Parks. 2013. A Continued Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: Undocumented Border Crosser Deaths Recorded by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2012. Tucson: Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona Department of Mexican American Studies.
Martinez, R. 2001. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. New York: Picador.
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Papadopoulos, D., N. Stephenson and V. Tsianos. 2008. Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the Twenty-First Century. London: Pluto Press.
Parkin, D. J. 1999. “Mementoes as Transitional Objects in Human Displacement.” Journal of Material Culture 4 (3): 303–320.
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Sanchez, G.E. 2015. Human Smuggling and Border Crossings. New York: Routledge.
Scott, J.C. 2012. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sheridan, L. M. 2009. “I Know It’s Dangerous”: Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Slack, J. and H. Campbell. 2016. “On Narco-Coyotaje: Illicit Regimes and Their Impacts on the US-Mexico Border.” Antipode 48 (5): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12242
Spener, D. 2009. Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico Border. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Sundberg, J. 2008. “‘Trash-Talk’ and the Production of Quotidian Geopolitical Boundaries in the USA-Mexico Borderlands.” Social and Cultural Geography 9 (8): 871–890. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360802441424
Tilley, C. 2006. “Introduction: Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage.” Journal of Material Culture 11 (1): 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183506062990
United States Customs and Border Protection. 2016. “About CBP.” Department of Homeland Security: Washington, DC. https://www.cbp.gov/about
Vogt, W. A. 2012. Ruptured Journeys, Ruptured Lives: Central American Migration, Transnational Violence, and Hope in Southern Mexico. PhD diss., University of Arizona.
Woody, C. 2015. “Mexico Is Facing a Deadly Central American Migrants Crisis.” Business Insider, 21 June. Available online: http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-is-facing-a-cental-americans-migrant-crisis-2015-6
Bacon, D. 2008. Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. Boston: Beacon Press.
Banks, L. 2009. “Trashing Arizona: Illegal Immigrants Dump Tons of Waste in the Wilderness Every Day – And It’s Devastating the Environment.” Tucson Weekly, 23 July. Available online: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/trashing-arizona/Content?oid=1168857
Beezley, W. H., C. E. Martin and W. E. French, eds. 1994. Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bender, B. 2001. “Landscapes on-the-Move.” Journal of Social Archaeology 1 (1): 75–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/146960530100100106
Blair, D. 2016. “The Migrant Crisis Will Never End. It Is Part of the Modern World.” The Telegraph, 8 May. Available online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/07/the-migrant-crisis-will-never-end-it-is-part-of-the-modern-world/
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Bowser, B. J. and M. N. Zedeno. 2009. The Archaeology of Meaningful Places. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Bureau of Land Management Arizona. 2015. Southern Arizona Project Report Fiscal Year 2015. Phoenix: Bureau of Land Management. Available online: http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/az/pdfs/undoc_aliens.Par.34239.File.dat/Southern_Arizona_SAP_FY15_508.pdf
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Cornelius, W. 2005. “Controlling ‘Unwanted’ Immigration: Lessons from the United States, 1993-2004.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31 (4): 775–794. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691830500110017
Crosthwaite, L. H., J. W. Byrd and B. Byrd, eds. 2003. Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti from La Frontera. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.
Das, V. and S. Randeria. 2015. “Politics of the Urban Poor: Aesthetics, Ethics, Volatility, Precarity.” Current Anthropology 56 (Supplement 11): S3–S14. https://doi.org/10.1086/682353
Davis, M. 2007. Planet of Slums. New York: Verso.
de Certeau, M. 2011. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by S. F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press.
De León, J. 2012. “‘Better to Be Hot than Caught’: Excavating the Conflicting Roles of Migrant Material Culture.” American Anthropologist 114 (3): 477–495. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01447.x
____. 2013. “Undocumented Migration, Use Wear, and the Materiality of Habitual Suffering in the Sonoran Desert.” Journal of Material Culture 18 (4): 321–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183513496489
____. 2015. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland: University of California Press.
Debusmann, B. Jr. 2013. “Muslim Converts in Mexico Make Up A Diverse, Fast-growing Community.” Fox News Latino, 29 July. Available online: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2013/07/29/muslim-converts-in-mexico-make-up-diverse-fast-growing-community/
De León, J., C. Gokee and A. Schubert. 2015. “‘By the Time I Get to Arizona’: Citizenship, Materiality, and Contested Identities Along the US-Mexico Border.” Anthropological Quarterly 88 (2): 445–479. https://doi.org/10.1353/anq.2015.0022
Doty, R. L. 2011. “Bare Life: Border-Crossing Deaths and Spaces of Moral Alibi.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29 (4): 599–612. https://doi.org/10.1068/d3110
Durand, J. and D. S. Massey. 2004. Crossing the Border: Research from the Mexican Migration Project. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Fukuyama, F. 1989. “The End of History?” The National Interest (Summer): 1–18.
Glüsing, J. 2005. “Praying to Allah in Mexico: Islam Is Gaining a Foothold in Chiapas.” Der Spiegel, 28 May. Available online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/praying-to-allah-in-mexico-islam-is-gaining-a-foothold-in-chiapas-a-358223.html
Gokee, C, and J. De León. 2014. “Sites of Contention: Archaeological Classification and Political Discourse in the US-Mexico Borderlands.” Journal of Contemporary Archaeology 1 (1): 133–163. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.v1i1.133
Gonzalez-Ruibal, A. 2008. “Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity.” Current Anthropology 49 (2): 247–279. https://doi.org/10.1086/526099
____. 2013. “Modernism.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World, edited by P. Graves-Brown, R. Harrison and A. A. Piccini, 306–320. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Graeber, D. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Press.
Hagan, J. M. 2008. Migration Miracles: Faith, Hope and Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harrison, R. and J. Schofield. 2010. After Modernity: Archaeological Approaches to the Contemporary Past. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hernández, A. 2014. Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers. New York: Verso.
Heyman, J. M. 2001. “Class and Classification at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Human Organization 60 (2): 128–140. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.60.2.de2cb46745pgfrwh
____. 2014. “‘Illegality’ and the U.S.-Mexico Border: How It Is Produced and Resisted.” In Constructing Illegality in America: Immigrant Experiences, Critiques, and Resistance, edited by C. Menjívar and D. Kanstroom, 111–137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hirsch, E. and M. O’Hanlon, eds. 1995. The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hootsen, J. A. n.d. “Islam Is the New Religion in Rebellious Mexican State Chiapas.” RNW Media. Available online: https://www.rnw.org/archive/islam-new-religion-rebellious-mexican-state-chiapas
Joseph, G. M., ed. 1994. Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Kearney, M. 2004. “The Classifying and Value-Filtering Missions of Borders.” Anthropological Theory 4 (2): 131–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499604042811
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Magaña, R. 2008. “Bodies on the Line: Life, Death and Authority on the Arizona-Mexico Border.” PhD Diss., University of Chicago.
Marco, L. K. 2002. “¿El Islam En Chiapas?: El. EZLN Y El Movimiento Mundial Murabitun.” Revista Académica Para El Estudio de Las Religiones 4: 79–91.
Martínez, D. 2015. “Coyote Use in an Era of Heightened Border Enforcement: New Evidence from the Arizona-Sonora Border.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (1): 1–17.
____., R. Reineke, R. Rubio-Goldsmith, B. E. Anderson, G. Hess and B. Parks. 2013. A Continued Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: Undocumented Border Crosser Deaths Recorded by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2012. Tucson: Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona Department of Mexican American Studies.
Martinez, R. 2001. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. New York: Picador.
Massey, D. S., J. S. Rugh and K. A. Pren. 2010. “The Geography of Undocumented Mexican Migration.” Mexican Studies 26 (1): 129–152. https://doi.org/10.1525/msem.2010.26.1.129
Menjívar, C. and D. Kanstroom, eds. 2014. Constructing Illegality in America: Immigrant Experiences, Critiques, and Resistance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mezzadra, S. and B. Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, Or, The Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377542
Miller, T. 2014. Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security. San Francisco: City Lights.
Nevins, J. 2010. Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on “Illegals” and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary. London and New York: Routledge.
Nevins, J. and M. Aizeki, 2008. Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid. San Francisco, CA: City Lights.
Papadopoulos, D., N. Stephenson and V. Tsianos. 2008. Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the Twenty-First Century. London: Pluto Press.
Parkin, D. J. 1999. “Mementoes as Transitional Objects in Human Displacement.” Journal of Material Culture 4 (3): 303–320.
Robinson, W. 2011. “Global Rebellion: The Coming Chaos?” Al Jazeera, 4 December. Available online: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111130121556567265.html
Rubio-Goldsmith, R., M. McCormick, D. Martínez and I. Duarte. 2006. The “Funnel Effect” and Recovered Bodies of Unauthorized Migrants Processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005. Report for the Binational Migration Institute. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona.
Sanchez, G.E. 2015. Human Smuggling and Border Crossings. New York: Routledge.
Scott, J.C. 2012. Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sheridan, L. M. 2009. “I Know It’s Dangerous”: Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Slack, J. and H. Campbell. 2016. “On Narco-Coyotaje: Illicit Regimes and Their Impacts on the US-Mexico Border.” Antipode 48 (5): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12242
Spener, D. 2009. Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico Border. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Sundberg, J. 2008. “‘Trash-Talk’ and the Production of Quotidian Geopolitical Boundaries in the USA-Mexico Borderlands.” Social and Cultural Geography 9 (8): 871–890. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360802441424
Tilley, C. 2006. “Introduction: Identity, Place, Landscape and Heritage.” Journal of Material Culture 11 (1): 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183506062990
United States Customs and Border Protection. 2016. “About CBP.” Department of Homeland Security: Washington, DC. https://www.cbp.gov/about
Vogt, W. A. 2012. Ruptured Journeys, Ruptured Lives: Central American Migration, Transnational Violence, and Hope in Southern Mexico. PhD diss., University of Arizona.
Woody, C. 2015. “Mexico Is Facing a Deadly Central American Migrants Crisis.” Business Insider, 21 June. Available online: http://www.businessinsider.com/mexico-is-facing-a-cental-americans-migrant-crisis-2015-6
Published
2017-07-12
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Section
Forum
How to Cite
Soto, G. (2017). Place making in Non-places: Migrant Graffiti in Rural Highway Box Culverts. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 3(2), 174-195. https://doi.org/10.1558/jca.31830
