Constructing a desert labyrinth: The psychological and emotional geographies of deterrence strategy on the U.S. / Mexico border
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Constructing_a_desert_labyrint ...
Embargo:
2023-01-21
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Final Accepted Manuscript
Affiliation
School of Geography, Development & Environment, The University of ArizonaDepartment of Psychology, The University of Arizona
Issue Date
2021-02
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Elsevier BVCitation
Chambers, S. N., Boyce, G. A., & Jacobs, W. J. (2021). Constructing a desert labyrinth: The psychological and emotional geographies of deterrence strategy on the US/Mexico border. Emotion, Space and Society, 38, 100764.Journal
Emotion, Space and SocietyRights
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Confinement, hindrance, and time bring anxiety, fear, and stress, often accompanied by confusion and desperation. In the case of undocumented immigrants in the Sonoran Desert, such conditions are manipulated by way of surveillance and policing. These conditions, in combination with physical exertion, augment a physiological stress response that coalesces with existing traumas and fear. We undertake a critical mapping of relations among enforcement infrastructure, migration routes, and measurable features of the physical landscape to demonstrate that a corridor in the region functions as a labyrinth, an outcome of a combination of threats and stressors determined by the spaces migrants find themselves in after crossing the U.S./Mexico border. We argue a biopolitical understanding of current border policies indicates it reduces migrants to bare life rather than using threat, stressors, or trauma as instruments for manipulating behavior. We discuss how this labyrinth works in combination with other mechanisms, including criminalization, detention, abuse, separation, and deportation, to deliver consequences that may deter migration. Despite these efforts, migration routes remain plastic, indicating the continued potential to resist and evade the surveillance technologies and enforcement deployed in the borderlands. We assert that an inevitable result of the desert labyrinth is human mortality. © 2021 Elsevier LtdNote
24 month embargo; available online 21 January 2021ISSN
1755-4586Version
Final accepted manuscriptae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.emospa.2021.100764