In her research with transnational Mexicans, Deborah A. Boehm has often asked individuals: if there were no barriers to your movement between Mexico and the United States, where would you choose to live? Almost always, they desire the freedom to "come and go." Yet the barriers preventing such movement are many. Because of the United States' rigid immigration policies, Mexican immigrants often find themselves living long distances from family members and unable to easily cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Transnational Mexicans experience what Boehm calls "intimate migrations," flows that both shape and are structured by gendered and familial actions and interactions, but are always defined by the presence of the U.S. state.
Intimate Migrations is based on over a decade of ethnographic research, focusing on Mexican immigrants with ties to a small, rural community in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi and several states in the U.S. West. By showing how intimate relations direct migration, and by looking at kin and gender relationships through the lens of illegality, Boehm sheds new light on the study of gender and kinship, as well as understandings of the state and transnational migration.
Industry Reviews
"This concise and accessible ethnography of transnational families living in the United States many ways in which gender subjectivities are experienced under a dysfunctional immigration system. Through personal relationships with people living in the southwestern city of Albuquerque, Boehm travels to 'San Marcos' in central Mexico to locate perspectives at different stages of the migrant stream. This multi-sited approach produces data from three distinct family networks: one that is based at the rancho in Mexico; one that is situated in New Mexico; and one that is evenly split between the two countries. But this flow of people who desire to move freely and 'live in both places' is impeded by powerful forces limiting their options and shaping their lives. Crossing the militarized border is more dangerous and costly and the challenges faced by divided families are greater than ever before." - William Alexander, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2013 "With an ethnographer's eye for detail, Boehm shows us the hopes, dreams, frustrations, tensions, divisions, and enduring qualities of lives among families connected and split by the U.S.-Mexico border. Intimate Migrations puts a human face on the reasons why people migrate, changing gender relations, and how children experience these dynamic and fluid processes, all of which are subject to increasingly restrictionist U.S. immigration laws... A must read for anyone interested in understanding our complex, transnational world." Leo Chavez, UC Irvine "Deborah Boehm's Intimate Migrations begins and ends with stories of transnational Mexican families that highlight the intersection of intimacy and 'illegality' in deeply personal ways... This evocative ethnography is based on 13 years of transnational fieldwork among familial networks stretching between states in the US West and Southwest and the Mexican states of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi. While contributing to the growing literature on everyday lived experiences of transnationalism, the book advances the study of the state, intimate interactions and transnational migration." - Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, May 2013 "Intimate Migrations explores the human side of immigration, vividly portraying everyday lives on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. Drawing on interviews and field work in Albuquerque and the small rancho of San Marcos in San Luis Potosi, Boehm outlines the sharp differences between male and female migration. Young men follow in the footsteps of their fathers, brothers, and uncles and migrate to become adults and providers, while women and children remain in the rancho or migrate much later, often to care for households of male kin rather than to enter the work force. These gender differences are in turn shaped by the potency and reach of U.S. Policy that constructs 'illegal' and 'legal' persons, constrains movement, conveys citizenship, and allows for family reunification- policies that fall unevenly on kin networks... A moving panorama of how these contradictions play out in personal lives."--Louise Lamphere,University of New Mexico"Recommended for all levels/libraries."-CHOICE
