Digital Practices and Affective Experiences Among Mexican Women Asylum Seekers Trapped in Tijuana, Mexico
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/mig.22143.027Keywords:
smartphone, affect, CBP One, Mexican women asylum seekers, TijuanaAbstract
This article analyzes the affective dimension of the digital practices of Mexican women asylum seekers trapped in northern Mexico. It is based on the ethnographic method through participant observation in two shelters in the border city of Tijuana and fifteen in-depth interviews. Between January 2023 and January 2024, the U.S. asylum process began with the appointment request to enter the country through a smartphone application (CBP One). This admission system caused temporary disorientation, generating despair and fear among Mexican women. In the context of waiting spaces, this translated into a diminished capacity to act. The practices of connection and disconnection among the women made the wait more bearable and enabled forms of agency.
Downloads
References
ACNUR. (2024). México: esperanza de un nuevo hogar. 2023 principales resultados de ACNUR México. https://www.acnur.org/mx/media/mexico-esperanza-de-un-nuevo-hogar-2023-principales-resultados-acnur-mexico
Ahmed, S. (2004). Affective Economies. Social Text, 22(2), 117-139. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-22-2_79-117
Ahmed, S. (2014). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748691142
Alencar, A., Kondova, K. y Ribbens, W. (2019). The smartphone as a lifeline: an exploration of refugees’ use of mobile communication technologies during their flight. Media, Culture and Society, 41(6), 828-844. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718813486
Awad, I. y Tossell, J. (2021). Is the smartphone always a smart choice? Against the utilitarian view of the “connected migrant”. Information Communication and Society, 24(4), 611-626. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1668456
Bourdieu, P. (1999). Meditaciones pascalianas. Anagrama.
Cascone, M. y Bonini, T. (2024). “Disconnecting from my smartphone is a privilege I do not have”: Mobile connection and disconnection practices among migrants and asylum seekers in three migrant reception centres of Sicily. New Media and Society, 27(9). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241249371
Chouliaraki, L. y M, Georgiu (2022). The Digital Border. Migration,Technology, Power. New York University Press. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479844319.001.0001
Clough, P. T. (2007). Introduction. En P. T. Clough (ed.), The Affective Turn. Theorizing the Social (pp. 1-33). Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822389606
Clough, P. T. (2008). The Affective Turn: Political Economy, Biomedia and Bodies. Theory, Culture y Society, 25(1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407085156
Dekker, R., Engbersen, G., Klaver, J. y Vonk, H. (2018). Smart Refugees: How Syrian Asylum Migrants Use Social Media Information in Migration Decision-Making. Social Media and Society, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118764439
Deleuze, G. y Guattari, F. (2004). Mil mesetas. Capitalismo y esquizofrenia. Pre-Textos.
Diminescu, D. (2008). The connected migrant: An epistemological manifesto. Social Science Information, 47(4), 565-579. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018408096447
Eriksen, T. H. (2021). Filling the apps: the smartphone, time and the refugee. En C. M. Jacobsen, M.-A. Karlsen y S. Khosravi (eds.), Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration (pp. 57-72). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429351730-5
Fundación BBVA y Secretaría de Gobernación. (2023). Anuario de Migración y Remesas México 2023.
Gherardi, S. (2019). Theorizing affective ethnography for organization studies. Organization, 26(6), 741-760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508418805285
Gil Everaert, I. (2021). Inhabiting the meanwhile: rebuilding home and restoring predictability in a space of waiting. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(19), 4327-4343. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1798747
Gómez Cruz, E. (2017). Etnografía celular: una propuesta emergente de etnografía digital. Virtualis, 8(16), 77-98.
Greene, A. (2020). Mobiles and “making do”: Exploring the affective, digital practices of refugee women waiting in Greece. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(5), 731-748. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549419869346
Hess, S. (2012). De-naturalising transit migration. Theory and methods of an ethnographic regime analysis. Population, Space and Place, 18(4), 428-440. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.632
Kleinman, A. y Kleinman, J. (2007). Somatization: The Interconnections in Chinese Society among Culture, Depressive Experiences, and the Meanings of Pain. En M. Lock y J. Farquhar (eds.), Beyond the Body Proper. Reading the Anthropology of Material Life (pp. 468-474). Duke University Press.
Kocher, A. (2023). Glitches in the Digitization of Asylum: How CBP One Turns Migrants’ Smartphones into Mobile Borders. Societies, 13(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13060149
La Verdad. (2024, 14 de mayo). Más de 80 mil mexicanos cruzaron con CBP One para solicitar asilo en Estados Unidos. La Verdad. https://laverdadjuarez.com/2024/05/14/mas-80-mil-mexicanos-cruzaron-con-cbp-one-para-solicitar-asilo-en-estados-unidos/
Leurs, K. (2019). Transnational connectivity and the affective paradoxes of digital care labour: Exploring how young refugees technologically mediate co-presence. European Journal of Communication, 34(6), 641-649. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323119886166
Leurs, K. y Patterson, J. (2020). Smartphones: Digital Infrastructures of the Displaced. En P. Adey, J. C. Bowstead, K. Brickell, V. Desai, M. Dolton, A. Pinkerton y A. Siddiqi (eds.), The Handbook of Displacement (pp. 583-597). Palgrave Mcmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47178-1_40
Leurs, K. y Smets, K. (2018). Five Questions for Digital Migration Studies: Learning from Digital Connectivity and Forced Migration In(to) Europe. Social Media and Society, 4(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118764425
Leutert, S. y Yates, C. (2024, noviembre). Asylum Processing at the U.S.-Mexico Border. https://www.strausscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/Nov_2024_Asylum_Processing.pdf
Madianou, M. y Miller, D. (2013). Polymedia: Towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(2), 169-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877912452486
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual. Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383574
Miller, D. y Horst, H. A. (2012). The Digital and the Human: A Prospectus for Digital Anthropology. En H. A. Horst y D. Miller (eds.), Digital Anthropology (pp. 3-35). Berg. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003085201-2
Moran, C. (2023). The “connected migrant”: A scoping review. Convergence, 29(2), 288-307. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221090480
Morgan, H. (2023). Living digitally like a migrant: Everyday smartphone practices and the (Re)mediation of hostile state-affects. Progress in Human Geography, 47(3), 409-426. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231174311
Navaro-Yashin, Y. (2009). Affective spaces, melancholic objects: ruination and the production of anthropological knowledge. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.01527.x
Odgers-Ortiz, O. (2024). La era del atrapamiento migratorio: la migración africana hacia la frontera norte de México. Cuadernos Intercambio Sobre Centroamérica y El Caribe, 21(1), 59300. https://doi.org/10.15517/ca.v21i1.59300
Odgers-Ortiz, O., Olivas Hernández, O. L. y Bojorquez-Chapela, I. (2023). Waiting in Motion. Migrants’ Involvement in Civil Society Organizations While Pursuing a Migration Project. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 21(4), 624-636. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2022.2155335
Ordóñez, T. J. (2008). The state of confusion: Reflections on Central American asylum seekers in the Bay Area. Ethnography, 9(1), 35-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138108088948
Ponzanesi, S. y Leurs, K. (2022). Digital Migration Practices and the Everyday. Communication, Culture and Critique, 15(2), 103-121. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac016
Tazzioli, M. (2022). The technological obstructions of asylum: Asylum seekers as forced techno-users and governing through disorientation. Security Dialogue, 53(3), 202-219. https://doi.org/10.1177/09670106211026080
Tazzioli, M. y Garelli, G. (2020). Containment beyond detention: The hotspot system and disrupted migration movements across Europe. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 38(6), 1009-1027. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775818759335
Thomson, E. P. (1971). The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century. Past y Present, 50(1), 76-136. https://doi.org/10.1093/past/50.1.76
Twigt, M. (2018). The Mediation of Hope: Digital Technologies and Affective Affordances Within Iraqi Refugee Households in Jordan. Social Media and Society, 4(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118764426
Twigt, M. (2022). Mediated Lives. Waiting and Hope among Iraqi Refugees in Jordan. Berghahn. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800733442
Vogt, W. (2020). Dirty Work, Dangerous Others. The Politics of Outsourced Immigration Enforcement in Mexico. Migration and Society, 3(1), 50-63. https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2020.111404
Wetherell, M. (2015). Trends in the Turn to Affect: A Social Psychological Critique. Body and Society, 21(2), 139-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X14539020
Wilding, R., Baldassar, L., Gamage, S., Worrell, S. y Mohamud, S. (2020). Digital media and the affective economies of transnational families. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(5), 639-655. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877920920278
Wilding, R. y Winarnita, M. (2022). Affect, Creativity and Migrant Belonging. Communication, Culture and Critique, 15(2), 283-289. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcac015
Witteborn, S. (2014). Forced migrants, emotive practice and digital heterotopia. Crossings: Journal of Migration y Culture, 5(1), 73-85. https://doi.org/10.1386/cjmc.5.1.73_1
Witteborn, S. (2015). Becoming (Im)perceptible: Forced migrants and virtual practice. Journal of Refugee Studies, 28(3), 350-367. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feu036
Zani, B. y Cockel, I. (2022). Introduction. Migrants and Their Smartphones. Interlaced Mobilities Online and Offline. Transfers, 12(3), 3-7. https://doi.org/10.3167/TRANS.2022.120302
Downloads
Published
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors of articles published in Migraciones retain the intellectual property rights over their works and grant the journal their distribution and public communication rights, consenting to their publication under a Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-Attribution 4.0 International License. Authors are encouraged to publish their work on the Internet (for example, on institutional or personal pages, repositories, etc.) respecting the conditions of this license and quoting appropriately the original source.
