Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“Lynn Stephen’s multisited ethnography insightfully unpacks globalization from below, revealing the contours of cross-border communities as they reweave the social fabrics of twenty-first-century North America.”—Jonathan Fox, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Where most research on things ‘transnational’ is anchored on one side of the border or the other,
Transborder Lives is conceptually and empirically well grounded throughout the geographic, national, social, political, and economic spaces within which its subjects are dispersed in both Mexico and the United States.”—Michael Kearney, author of
Changing Fields of Anthropology: From Local to Global“
Transborder Lives confirms Stephen’s reputation as a leading contributor to North American transnational and migration studies. Stephen’s nuanced, empathetic—and, I would add, physically and temporally demanding—ethnographic work undergirds the study’s elegantly narrated exploration of how indigenous Oaxacans articulate and understand their own individual and collective experiences of daily routines. . .” -- Paul Allatson * American Ethnologist *
“[
Transborder Lives] is a must-read for anyone interested in indigenous migration to the United States, Oaxacan studies, political economy, the construction of race and ethnicity in a bi-national context, indigenous knowledges, and transborder studies writ large. And its clear prose makes it accessible to undergraduates as well as non-academics interested in policy studies. Certainly, for members of communities such as those described by Stephen, the book will be cherished as a historical and ethnographic document.” -- Lourdes Gutiérrez Nájera * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *
“Stephen certainly knows her stuff. . . . The real intimacy and trust she shares with her respondents and her rich understanding of their lives come across powerfully in her frank conversations. Her commitment to telling migrants’ stories and to using social science to promote social change is also clear. . . . This book is valuable for many reasons. . . .
Transborder Lives also does an excellent job of placing migration dynamics within the context of broader political-economic factors on both sides of the border and analyzing how these have changed over time.” -- Peggy Livett * American Journal of Sociology *
Table of ContentsIllustrations and Tables vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
1. Approaches to Transborder Lives 1
2. Transborder Communities in Political and Historical Context: Views from Oaxaca 35
3. Mexicans in California and Oregon 63
4. Transborder Labor Lives: Harvesting, Housecleaning, Gardening, and Childcare 95
5. Surveillance and Invisibility in the Lives of Indigenous Farmworkers in Oregon 143
6. Women’s Transborder Lives: Gender Relations in Work and Families 178
7. Navigating the Borders of Racial and Ethnic Hierarchies 209
8. Grassroots Organizing in Transborder Lives 231
9. Transborder Ethnic Identity Construction in Life and on the Net: E-Mail and Web Page Construction and Use 274
Conclusions 309
Epilogue: Notes on Collaborative Research 321
Notes 327
Works Cited 335
Index 359
