Anthropology Exam 3

Prevention Through Deterrence

U.S. border policy that pushes migrants into dangerous desert areas to discourage crossing; increases risk of death rather than stopping migration

• “In some cases, deaths may be reduced or prevented (by fencing along the highways, for example). In other cases, deaths may increase (as enforcement in urban areas forces aliens to attempt mountain or desert crossings)” (US Gov’t report quoted in de Leon p. 34).

Hybrid Collectif

A system where humans, environment, technology, and policy all work together; the desert itself becomes part of border enforcement

Necroviolence

Violence inflicted on bodies after death, including decomposition, scavenging, and disappearance, which prevents dignity and identification.

Structural Violence

Harm caused by political and social systems; migrant deaths are built into border policy rather than accidental.

State of Exception

A situation where normal legal protections don’t apply; migrants are treated as outside the law.

• “the process whereby sovereign authorities declare emergencies in order to suspend the legal protections afforded to individuals while simultaneously unleashing the power of the state upon them”

• “Sovereign power produces migrants as excluded subjects to be dealt with violently while simultaneously neutralizing their ability to resist or protest”

• De León argues that the borderlands—especially the desert—become a “space of exception.” This means:

  • Migrants lose the protections they would normally have under law once they enter this space

  • The area operates outside normal moral and legal standards

  • The state can indirectly allow or produce violence and death without being held accountable

Exposure

Official cause of death (heat, dehydration), though De León argues it hides policy responsibility.

Open Graves

The desert acting as a mass grave where migrant bodies decompose and disappear.

Ambiguous Loss

When families don’t know if a loved one is dead or alive, causing ongoing grief and no closure.

Forensic Anthropology

The study of human remains to identify the dead and determine cause of death.

Undocumented Remains

Bodies that cannot be identified due to decomposition or lack of records.

Coyotes

Smugglers who guide migrants across the border; can be helpful or exploitative.

Deportation Cycle

Repeated pattern of crossing, being caught, deported, and attempting again.

Chingaderas

Dark humor or jokes migrants use to cope with hardship and danger.

La Bestia

Freight train migrants ride through Mexico; symbol of danger and desperation.

Dehumanizing Language (“Illegal”)

Terms that reduce migrants to a status rather than recognizing them as people, making harsh treatment easier to justify

Plausible Deniability

The government avoids responsibility by claiming deaths are caused by natural conditions rather than policy.

Enforcement with Consequences

Policy that increases penalties for repeated border crossings; intended to deter but often increases suffering.

Ethnography

Research method involving direct observation and participation; De León studies migrants in real contexts.

Pig Decomposition Experiments

Use of animal bodies to study how human remains decay in the desert, showing how quickly bodies disappear.

Normalization of Death

Migrant deaths become routine and expected, losing urgency or attention.

Invisibility

The system hides suffering by erasing bodies and limiting awareness of migrant deaths.

Humanization vs Dehumanization

Tension between seeing migrants as individuals with lives and reducing them to statistics or labels.

cultural violence

1. both violence and nonviolence are learned in particular cultural contexts

2. violence is not primal, arbitrary, or chaotic

3. violence follows cultural patterns, rules, and ethics. 

• Calling it meaningless -> interpret it as emotional

• Strategic political tool

• Such objectives are morally reprehensible, but not “meaningless”  

structural violence

• Structural – due to the political and economic organization of the social world

• Violent – causes injury to people

• “sinful” social structures characterized by poverty and steep grades of social inequality

• Violence exerted systematically (indirectly)

• Does not mesh with moral economy of blaming individual actors/perpetrators

places of exception

physical and political locations where an individual’s rights and protections under law can be stripped away upon entrance

De León argues that areas like the Sonoran Desert along the U.S.–Mexico border function as a place of exception:

• Migrants crossing there are effectively outside the protection of the law

• The environment itself (heat, dehydration, terrain) becomes a tool of enforcement

• The U.S. government can avoid direct responsibility by letting nature do the work

Migrant Technology

• Garlic

• Carpeted shoes

• Camouflage/black clothing

• Religious relics

• Black bottles

Site typology and archaeology

• Migrant religious shrine

• Rest site

• Pickup site→ need to look like you haven’t been walking through the desert, have to leave stuff behind

El programma frontera sur

• Increase border enforcement in the south so there is less people up north

• People go to mexico to seek asylum from central america where there is a lot of gang violence (honduras, guatemala, el salvador)

• Pushes the pressure of PTD further south 

• Hybrid collectif– non human actor of the la bestia train line and them cracking down and not letting people use the trains

  • Human actors: law enforcement, cartels controlling the routes, (ex. In de leon where christian is captured by the cartel)

• Apprehensions of mexicans going down and other than mexicans goes up in 2019, family units accounts for the majority of apprehensions

Enforcement efforts through Trump 1.0

• Deployed 4000 national guard to the border and 5200 active duty personal

• A lot more border patrol agents from 1992 to 2018

• There is a peak of people migrating in march/spring, because of weather, decline in december

• More recently there is less of a cyclical nature of migrating, not as many distinct patterns as to when people choose to travel

• During pandemic people were sent back over title 42 (public health policy)