ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how mobility provides a lens for understanding the interconnection of securitized borders and the production of precarity. The recent migrant caravans headed to the US from Central America have received an unprecedented amount of attention under the current administration. While caravans are nothing new, a mix of increasing desperation in countries of origin, a sudden media and political interest, and newer forms of organizing through social media, have made them larger and more visible. The caravans have increased in size over the years, not only because traveling in groups provides safety to migrants, but because the US–Mexico border, and more recently, the Mexico–Guatemala border have become increasingly militarized. This chapter argues that caravans provide a useful if painful window onto the interconnection of securitized borders and the production of precarity across Mexico’s borders. This securitization of insecurity is best understood if we look to borders as interconnected and contradictory regimes which can exacerbate problems which they purport to solve. The migrant caravans become a jumping-off point to analyze three connected phenomena: The impacts of US–Mexico boundary fortification; the recent militarization of the Mexico–Guatemala border; and the ways in which migrant bodies become focusing events obscuring larger interrelated historical and geopolitical circumstances.
