"A Crisis of Rights and Responsibility: Feminist Geopolitical Perspective on Latin American Refungees and Forced Migrants," presented by Rebecca Torres, professor of geography and the environment from University of Texas at Austin.
Abstract:
With the advent of the Trump presidency we are facing the most
anti-refugee and immigrant administration in recent U.S. history. This
follows on the heels of the Obama era, characterized by record
deportations and severe U.S. policies of deterrence towards Latin
American refugees in its own backyard. This aggressive expansion of U.S.
Homeland Security migration control included: outsourcing enforcement
to Mexico; re-introducing migrant family detention; increasing "family
unit" raids; and accelerating immigration court hearings. These
strategies of state deterrence and enforcement heightened vulnerability
of asylum-seeking women and children from Mexico and Central America to
human and legal rights abuses. Under the incipient Trump administration,
these practices are increasing. In this talk Torres will use a feminist
geopolitical approach to interrogate the intimate and embodied spaces
of migration controls that ground the workings of the state in the
normalized, routine, and informal practices of state officials and in
the experiences of vulnerable yet resilient women and children refugees.
Employing results from two mixed-methods transnational research
projects, as well as personal experience as a volunteer, Torres
critically examines the everyday state practices of U.S./Mexico
migration enforcement in three spaces: border security spaces, legal
spaces and carceral spaces. She invites contemplation of strategies that
aid in resisting rights abuses and fostering responsibility, humanity
and hospitality towards refugees and immigrants.
Biography:
Rebecca Torres' research has focused on rural/community development and
poverty reduction, with special emphases on migration, agricultural
transformation and tourism in the context of globalization. Given the
gendered nature and uneven effects of these processes, she has interests
in feminist geography, gender, and children's geographies. Her work
focuses on the lived experience on the ground by migrants and their
families. Her work has employed quantitative and qualitative mixed
methods, and she has sought to contribute new approaches involving
narrative inquiry and participatory methods – the latter particularly
with respect to activist/engaged research via collaborations with
diverse scholars, development practitioners and activists.
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