This volume focuses on the specific relationship between the institutional impunity, lack of public safety and public space in failing to prevent organized sexual murder. The murder of women on the U.S.-Mexican border is a complex phenomenon with multiple geographic, economic, political, sociological, and psychological causes.

Much political oratory has been devoted to safeguarding AmericaÕs boundary with Mexico, but policies that militarize the border and criminalize immigrants have overshadowed the regionÕs widespread violence against women, the increase in crossing deaths, and the lingering poverty that spurs people to set out on dangerous northward treks. This book addresses those concerns by focusing on gender-based violence, security, and human rights from the perspective of women who live with both violence and poverty. From the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, scholars from both sides of the 2,000-mile border reflect expertise in disciplines ranging from international relations to criminal justice, conveying a more complex picture of the region than that presented in other studies. Initial chapters offer an overview of routine sexual assaults on women migrants, the harassment of Central American immigrants at the hands of authorities and residents, corruption and counterfeiting along the border, and near-death experiences of border crossers. Subsequent chapters then connect analysis with solutions in the form of institutional change, social movement activism, policy reform, and the spread of international norms that respect human rights as well as good governance. These chapters show how all facets of the border situationÑglobalization, NAFTA, economic inequality, organized crime, political corruption, rampant patriarchyÑpromote gendered violence and other expressions of hyper-masculinity. They also show that U.S. immigration policy exacerbates the problems of border violenceÑin marked contrast to the border policies of European countries. By focusing on womenÕs everyday experiences in order to understand human security issues, these contributions offer broad-based alternative approaches and solutions that address everyday violence and inattention to public safety, inequalities, poverty, and human rights. And by presenting a social and democratic international feminist framework to address these issues, they offer the opportunity to transform todayÕs security debate in constructive ways.

The U.S.ÐMexico border is frequently presented by contemporary media as a violent and dangerous place. But that is not a new perception. For decades the border has been constructed as a topographic metaphor for all forms of illegality, in which an ineffable link between space and violence is somehow assumed. The sociological and cultural implications of violence have recently emerged at the forefront of academic discussions about the border. And yet few studies have been devoted to one of its most disturbing manifestations: gender violence. This book analyzes this pervasive phenomenon, including the femicides in Ciudad Ju‡rez that have come to exemplify, at least for the media, its most extreme manifestation. Contributors to this volume propose that the study of gender-motivated violence requires interpretive and analytical strategies that draw on methods reaching across the divide between the social sciences and the humanities. Through such an interdisciplinary conversation, the book examines how such violence is (re)presented in oral narratives, newspaper reports, films and documentaries, novels, TV series, and legal discourse. It also examines the role that the media have played in this process, as well as the legal initiatives that might address this pressing social problem. Together these essays offer a new perspective on the implications of, and connections between, gendered forms of violence and topics such as mechanisms of social violence, the micro-social effects of economic models, the asymmetries of power in local, national, and transnational configurations, and the particular rhetoric, aesthetics, and ethics of discourses that represent violence.

Since the early 1990s, the repeated murders of women from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico have become something of a global cause célèbre. Cultural Representations of Feminicidio at the US-Mexico Border examines creative responses to these acts of violence. It reveals how theatre, art, film, fiction and other popular cultural forms seek to remember and mourn the female victims of violent death in the city at the same time as they interrogate the political, legal and societal structures that produce the crimes. Different chapters examine the varying art forms to engage with Ciudad Juárez’s feminicidal wave. Finnegan discusses Àlex Rigola’s theatrical adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 by Teatre Lliure in Barcelona as well as painting about the victims of feminicidio by Irish painter Brian Maguire. There is analysis of documentary film about Ciudad Juárez, including Lourdes Portillo’s acclaimed Señorita Extraviada (2001). The final chapter turns its attention to writing about feminicide and examines testimonial and crime fiction narratives like the mystery novel Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba, among other examples. By drawing on a range of artistic responses to the murders in Ciudad Juárez, Cultural Representations of Feminicidio at the US-Mexico Border shows how art, film, theatre and fiction can unsettle official narratives about the crimes and undo the static paradigms that are frequently used to interpret them.

Since 1993, more than five hundred women and girls have been murdered in Ciudad Juárez across the border from El Paso, Texas. At least a third have been sexually violated and mutilated as well. Thousands more have been reported missing and remain unaccounted for. The crimes have been poorly investigated and have gone unpunished and unresolved by Mexican authorities, thus creating an epidemic of misogynist violence on an increasingly globalized U.S.-Mexico border. This book, the first anthology to focus exclusively on the Juárez femicides, as the crimes have come to be known, compiles several different scholarly "interventions" from diverse perspectives, including feminism, Marxism, critical race theory, semiotics, and textual analysis. Editor Alicia Gaspar de Alba shapes a multidisciplinary analytical framework for considering the interconnections between gender, violence, and the U.S.-Mexico border. The essays examine the social and cultural conditions that have led to the heinous victimization of women on the border—from globalization, free trade agreements, exploitative maquiladora working conditions, and border politics, to the sexist attitudes that pervade the social discourse about the victims. The book also explores the evolving social movement that has been created by NGOs, mothers' organizing efforts, and other grassroots forms of activism related to the crimes. Contributors include U.S. and Mexican scholars and activists, as well as personal testimonies of two mothers of femicide victims.