Metropolitics

From Transit to Settlement. A Mexican Border Town's Transition from a Transit Space to a Waiting Territory

Isabel Gil-Everaert — 2020-03-03T06:00:00Z

Tanapan, a border town in southern Mexico has long been a point of passage for Central American migrants bound for the United States. Since 2014, new restrictions have gradually changed it into a waiting territory. How was it transformed into a new involuntary destination?
In early July 2016, Lucy invited me for lunch at her house. I had met her the previous summer, while she was staying at La Palma, a migrant shelter located in Tanapan, a small town in southern Mexico where I conducted

- From the Field / Mexico, borders, United States, migrants, migration, shelter, waiting, transit space, territory, Guatemala

Land Regularization on the Fringes of Mexico City: A Recipe for Reducing Inequalities?

Jean-François Valette & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-06-08T05:00:00Z

Mexico City's working-class neighbourhoods are the focus of numerous land-regularization operations. Jean-François Valette analyses the impact of these policies and the effects of land titling on already highly fragmented peripheral spaces.
---- Series: Land Rights in the Urban Global South. Regularization and Land-Ownership Policies in Low-Income Neighbourhoods Despite the explosion in the construction of legal “social” housing since the 1990s, the “classic” Mexican model of residential

- From the Field / inequalities, periurban, land, Global South, Latin America, Mexico, land tenure, land rights, land titles, land titling, Mexico City, title deeds, land regularization

Repositioning the state's role through water politics in Mexico City's informal settlements

Guillem Ramírez Chico — 2018-03-27T05:00:00Z

Throughout the Mexico City metropolitan area, the struggle for water access often defines the relationship (or lack thereof) between municipal governments and residents. Guillem Ramirez Chico delineates the distinctive local politics of water provision in three of the area's informal settlements, asserting that poor households are frequently left vulnerable in the name of environmental conservation.
In Mexico City, water is used as a political tool to get political support, through client

- From the Field / local government, water, settlements, state, informality, Mexico, informal housing, water access, water politics, informal settlements, state-free spaces, Mexico City

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira — 2016-04-19T05:00:00Z

In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol the border with military gear, stand out for taking matters into their own hands. Harel Shapira explains that these militiamen are motivated not just by reflexive right-wing anti-immigrant ideology, but also by a nostalgia for their own lost worlds of work and meaning forged in military careers.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has made the construction of a high border

- From the Field / immigration, United States, work, migration, borders, community, Minutemen, patrol, military, nostalgia, Mexico, immigration control, Featured