Dirty Borders, Clean Women

Whittaker, Catherine und Dürr, Eveline (2024): Dirty Borders, Clean Women. A Feminist Decolonial Perspective on Mexican-American Women's Watchfulness and Security. In: Conflict and Society. Advances in Research, Bd. 10: S. 178-192

Abstract

How do Mexican-American women in the US-Mexico borderlands respond to insecurity relating to multiple forms of discrimination? The present article compares the experiences of women of different class and ethnic backgrounds to analyze their gendered watchfulness in response to the racialized and classed anti-immigrant vigilance of privileged Anglo-Americans. We argue that, in a context of ongoing coloniality, maintaining an exploitable racialized and gendered sub-worker class requires conjuring the illusion of the border as a necessary security feature. Mexican-American women's watchfulness strategies, including professionalism, beauty practices, and artistic performances, instead makes visible the ways in which the border as the margin of the state actively produces insecurity and violence. Viewing security from the margins of the margins allows us to expand and decolonize previous understandings.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Keywords: California; discrimination; domestic workers; gender; Latinas; US-Mexico border
• Fakultät: Kulturwissenschaften > Department für Kulturwissenschaften und Altertumskunde > Ethnologie
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 170 Ethik ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 300 Sozialwissenschaft, Soziologie ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 360 Soziale Probleme, Sozialdienste ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 370 Bildung und Erziehung ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 380 Handel, Kommunikation, Verkehr ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 390 Bräuche, Etikette, Folklore