Academic highlights
‘Deported, homeless, and into the canal: Environmental structural violence in the binational Tijuana River’
In this article, Calderon-Villarreal and colleagues discuss the nexus of post-deportation and homelessness-related vulnerability, police violence, and exposure to environmental harms through the lens of environmental structural violence. The article focuses on the residents of El Bordo, an informal settlement in the Tijuana River Canal on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border. Much literature on US-Mexico migration focuses on the experiences of Mexicans in the US. By focusing on deportees in Tijuana, this article highlights the continued vulnerability and exclusion faced by migrants following forced removal from the US.
People living in El Bordo come into frequent contact with Tijuana River Canal water through daily use related to social exclusion from other water sources, and through crossing the river. This represents an intersection of environmental and structural violence as the Tijuana River poses an environmental health risk that El Bordo residents are forced into contact with due to violent social structures.
This intersection is demonstrated through a robust, transdisciplinary methodology. Water quality of the river was assessed using surface samples from seven sites during five water sampling campaigns, and diverse forms of testing were conducted, including measurement of levels of faecal indicator bacteria. Ethnographic methods were also employed, including semi-structured interviews, ethnographic fieldwork notes, photography, and videos. Finally, surveys were conducted with 85 participants to collect demographic information including information on migration history, and water-related health conditions and practices.
The study found that the water of the Tijuana River does pose an environmental health risk. For example, E. Coli levels were 40,000 times the Mexican legal limits for treated wastewater and for river water. Nevertheless, residents of El Bordo came into frequent contact with the river, despite perceiving it as a risk to their health. The most reported reason for immersion in the canal water was to flee the frequent police raids of El Bordo; imprisonment and police beatings were seen as a more acute health risk than the river water, and so residents were frequently forced to face environmental harms to escape state violence.
Drawing on these results, the authors develop the concept of environmental structural violence to highlight the role of environmental injustice in enacting structural violence and creating poor health outcomes for the residents of El Bordo. Many of these residents are deportees of the US who continue to face exclusion and violence following migration.
Alhelí Calderon-Villarreal et. al., (2022) ‘Deported, homeless, and into the canal: Environmental structural violence in the binational Tijuana River’, Social Science and Medicine, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115044
‘Aquí viene una Veneca más’: Venezuelan migrants and ‘the sexual question’ in Peru
Venezuelan migrants fleeing the country’s political and socioeconomic crisis have faced xenophobic accusations of spreading infectious diseases to neighbouring Latin American countries. In Peru, Venezuelan migrant women are accused of importing HIV and other STIs, causing stigma that may limit their willingness and ability to access sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care. In this article, Irons situates these accusations within the status of Venezuelans as racialised others in Peru and the sexualisation of Venezuelan women. Irons argues that addressing the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of Venezuelan migrants in Peru necessitates addressing the stigma that they face.
This article draws on qualitative research in Lima, Peru; 50 interviews were conducted with Venezuelan migrant women, their neighbours from Lima, and non-governmental organisation stakeholders. Thus, the perspectives of migrant women themselves are highlighted, foregrounding their own experiences of SRH stigma in Peru. Women in this study discussed their experiences of sexualisation in Peru, linking this to experiences of xenophobia. They also discussed perceived racial differences between themselves and Peruvians, highlighting the role of being a racialised other in discussions on SRH and stigma.
Through reference to ‘The Sexual Question’, Irons highlights that the blaming of racialised others for STIs in Peru is not a new phenomenon; through the 19th and 20th century, Asian, Black, Indigenous and Jewish people were blamed for STIs, depending on the context of the time. What is different in the present is that Venezuelan migrants do have real SRH needs. The crisis in Venezuela created a shortage of contraceptives, putting Venezuelan migrant women at high risk, and a shortage of HIV medication, forcing 8,000 people living with HIV to leave the country. As such, access to SRH services is extremely important for Venezuelan migrants in Peru and elsewhere. Increasing willingness and ability to access these services requires addressing the public health crisis of stigma.
Rebecca Irons (2022): ‘Aquí viene una Veneca más’: Venezuelan migrants and ‘the sexual question’ in Peru, Anthropology & Medicine, DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2022.2046700