Cities and Citizenship at the U. S. -Mexico Border: The Paso Del Norte Metropolitan Region

"At the center of the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border, a sprawling transnational urban space has mushroomed into a metropolitan region with over two million people whose livelihoods depend on global manufacturing, cross-border trade, and border control jobs. Our volume advances knowledge on urban space, gender, education, security, and work, focusing on Ciudad Ju��rez, the export-processing (maquiladora) manufacturing capital of the Americas and the infamous site of femicide and outlier murder rates connected with arms and drug trafficking. Given global economic trends, this transnational urban region is a likely paradigmatic future for other world regions"--Provided by publisher. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 List of Maps and Figures......Page 8 List of Tables......Page 9 Preface: "Living and Working in a Global Manufacturing Border Urban Space: A Paradigm for the Future?"......Page 10 1 Globalization, Transborder Networks, and U.S.-Mexico Border Cities......Page 24 Section I: Security and Safety in the Border Region......Page 44 2 Death in a Transnational Metropolitan Region......Page 46 3 The Disarticulation of Justice: Precarious Life and Cross-Border Feminicides in the Paso del Norte Region......Page 66 4 Surviving Domestic Violence in the Paso del Norte Border Region......Page 94 Section II: Globalized Production, Urban Space, and Public Services......Page 114 5 Globalization and its Effects on the Urban Socio-Spatial Structure of a Transfrontier Metropolis: El Paso, TX-Ciudad Juárez, Chih.-Sunland-Park, NM......Page 116 6 World-class Automotive Harnesses and the Precariousness of Employment in Juárez......Page 142 Section III: Living with Globalized Risks: Poverty, Immigration, and Education......Page 168 7 Centering the Margins: The Transformation of Community in Colonias on the U.S.-Mexico Border......Page 170 8 Schooling for Global Competitiveness in the Border Metropolitan Region......Page 196 9 Alianza para la Calidad de la Educación and the Production of an Empty Curriculum......Page 218 Section IV: Toward new governance?......Page 238 10 Crossborder Governance in a Tristate, Binational Region......Page 240 About the Contributors......Page 268 Index......Page 270 Ultimately, this fascinating volume is the extraordinary result of a rare and rigorous collective dialogue among and between Mexico and U.S.-based scholars, all of whom not only have studied the region for years, but have also experienced, either directly or indirectly, the impact of twenty-first century border life in its multiple dimensions: from the absent state to the empty curriculum, from organized crime to disorganized urban planning and border violence, from the triumphs of global capital to local labor and community struggles."--Alejandro Lugo, author of Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest at the U.S.-Mexico Border "Recent events have again placed Ciudad Juarez in the head lines of print media all over the world, confirming not only the dynamics of an international border community but the need to better understand the complex processes of interactions across the border that are behind such dynamics.- The volume is a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach to analyzing an enormously significant region in ways that clarify the kind of everyday life and work that is generated in a major urban global manufacturing site amid insecurity, inequality, and a virtually absent state. At the center of the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border, a sprawling transnational urban space has mushroomed into a metropolitan region with over two million people whose livelihoods depend on global manufacturing, cross-border trade, and border control jobs. Our volume advances knowledge on urban space, gender, education, security, and work, focusing on Ciudad Juarez, the export-processing (maquiladora) manufacturing capital of the Americas and the infamous site of femicide and outlier murder rates connected with arms and drug trafficking. Given global economic trends, this transnational urban region is a likely paradigmatic future for other world regions This book contributes significantly to such an understanding. Its emphasis on the categories of space and state brings cohesion to the analysis of the wide array of border problems that go from the harmonious to the violent in settings of social and economic relations. No wonder the U.S.-Mexico border has been viewed as both, uniting and dividing two nations and/or two societies that have succeeded and failed at different points in time when facing the challenges of the asymmetries of power that characterize the bilateral relations between them. This book comes at an excellent time, fulfilling a need to understand the U.S.-Mexico border from a more scientifically based approach that allows its analysis to surface above prejudice and stereotypes."--Jorge A. Bustamante, Founder and former President, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte At the center of the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border, a sprawling transnational urban space has mushroomed into a metropolitan region with over two million people whose livelihoods depend on global manufacturing, cross-border trade, and border control jobs. Our volume advances knowledge on urban space, gender, education, security, and work, focusing on Ciudad Jur̀ez, the export-processing (maquiladora) manufacturing capital of the Americas and the infamous site of femicide and outlier murder rates connected with arms and drug trafficking. Given global economic trends, this transnational urban region is a likely paradigmatic future for other world regions.--Résumé de l'éditeur "This groundbreaking interdisciplinary edited collection embodies the social commitment and the kind of scholarly collaboration deeply indispensable, both within and across nation-states, to more effectively confront the socio-political, cultural, and policy-making challenges associated with global border regions, such as Paso del Norte, around the world.-