Description

Keeping Migrants in Their Place: Technologies of Control and Racialized Public Space in Arizona

Global disciplinary strategies enable Western nations to maintain a cross-border flow of migrant labor that is vulnerable and exploitable. The effort to keep migrants “in their place” by keeping them out of public space is at the heart of this research project. We examine whether and how two interrelated technologies of control, surveillance, and enforcement rituals operate to shape migrants’ experience of public space. Drawing on narratives obtained via focus groups and interviews, the authors explore how the localized expression of global disciplinary strategies racializes and restricts public space for migrants residing in Arizona–“ground zero” in the immigration debate.

immigration, race, public space, globalization, surveillance, enforcement, migrants

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 36:2 (2009): 54-72