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Cited by 62Migration, Health, Geopolitics, Historical GeographyBorder Security and International RelationsMigration and Exile Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 52 of the 52 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Steel Walls and Picket Fences: Rematerializing the U.S.-Mexican Border in Ambos Nogales

McGuire, Randall H.·2013·American Anthropologist
DOI 10.1111/aman.12029
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Abstract

For most of the 20th century, the border cities of Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora formed the single transnational community of Ambos Nogales (Both Nogales). Today the people in Ambos Nogales nostalgically remember this border as a picket fence between neighbors. In the mid-1990s, the United States tore down the picket fence and erected a steel wall to enclose the border and prevent undocumented migration and drug smuggling. In 2011, they erected a new and improved steel wall. The rematerialization of the U.S.–Mexican border through Ambos Nogales emerges dialectically from fortification and transgression. The wall is the most visible instrument of the United States' militarization of the border, but the wall does not secure the border. The United States built the wall to limit the agency of crossers. The wall, however, enables agency that the builders did not imagine or desire, and crossers continually create new ways to transgress the barrier. The material border facilitates and restricts the agency of the people of Ambos Nogales, and they rematerialize the border in ways that contravene the interests of the nation-states. This in turn leads the nation-state to rematerialize the border to counter this transgression. Por el siglo XX, las cludades fronterizas de Nogales, Arizona y Nogales, Sonora conformaron una sola comunidad transnacional de Ambos, Nogales. Hoy en dia la gente de Ambos, Nogales solo recuerda con nostalgia esta frontera como una cerca entre vecinos. A mediados de la década de los 90's Estados Unidos demolió la cerca y erigió un muro de acero que bloqueó la frontera para prevenir la inmigración de indocumentados y el contrabando de drogas. En 2011 se construyó un nuevo y mejorado muro de acero; fue asi como la reconstrucción de la frontera E.U.–México en Ambos, Nogales surgió del dialecto de fortificación y transgresión. Aunque el muro es el más importante instrumento de militarización en la frontera, ésta no la asegura. Estados Unidos construyó el muro para limitar a la agencia de quienes cruzan; sin embargo éste le permite aquello que sus constructores no deseaban ni imaginaban y estos cruces crean continuamente nuevas formas de traspasar la barrera. La frontera material facilita y restringe a la agencia de la gente de Ambos, Nogales; no obstante ellos crearon formas de infringir en los intereses de las naciones-estado, a quienes conllevó a reconstruir la frontera para oponerse a esta transgresión.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/aman.12029

Cites

52 of 52 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Walls do not secure a border that separates what was previously a single community but create conditions for differential treatment of borders and their permeability.

    “As McGuire notes, walls do not secure a border that separates what was previously a single community but create conditions for differential treatment of borders and their permeability.”

    From The Work of Boundaries: Critical Cartographies and the Archaeological Record of the Relatively Recent Past (2022) · cites this paper as McGuire 2013

Citations

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Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Amnesty International, 2012, In Hostile Terrain: Human Rights Violations in Immigration Enforcement in the US Southwest
  2. Ashabranner, 1987, The Vanishing Border: A Photographic Journey along Our Frontier with Mexico
  3. Banks, 2011, Digging for Dollars: The Drug Cartels Have Made Nogales the Tunnel Capital of the Southwestern Border, Tucson Weekly
  4. Berger, 2009, What Things Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture
  5. Eppinga, 2002, Nogales: Life and Times on the Frontier
  6. Heyman, 2004, On the Border: Society and Culture between the United States and Mexico, 221
  7. Klausmeier, 2004, Wall Remnants-Wall Traces: The Comprehensive Guide to the Berlin Wall
  8. Miller, 2010, Stuff
  9. Ríos, 1999, Capirotada: A Nogales Memior

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Metadata

Authors
McGuire, R. H.
Affiliations
Binghamton University (US)
Corresponding author
McGuire, Randall H.
Venue
American Anthropologist
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2013-08-20
Volume
115
Issue
3
Pages
466-480
ISSN
0002-7294 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1111/aman.12029
OpenAlex
W1860292074
Semantic Scholar
54ecf466b24502007fb3642f9a77bad4080e37dd
Cited by
61
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
FWCI
4.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
doi.wiley.com/10.1002/tdm_license_1.1 (tdm, 742 d)
Locations
American Anthropologist (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Migration, Health, Geopolitics, Historical Geography
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Border Security and International Relations
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration and Exile Studies
Keywords
U.S.-Mexico border, steel walls, border fortifications, transnational communities, border crossing, transgression, agency, border militarization, nation-state, picket fences, irregular migration, drug smuggling

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