„Coyotes“, „Passanten aus dem Norden“ und „weiße Witwen“. Transmigration und Geschlecht im ländlichen Raum Guatemalas

Abstract

Abstract

Coyotes, Norteños Transeúntes and Viudas Blancas: Transmigration and Gender in Rural Areas of Guatemala. Since pacifi cation and formal democratisation in Central America during the mid-1990s, the accelerated and asymmetrical integration of the region into the global economy has led to various widespread social consequences, among them the increased migration of, mainly, impoverished peasants, artisans and traders to the United States. As a result, the formation of a new border regime in southern Mexico can be observed. In this essay, I take a micro-sociological perspective of these transformation processes in the Central American region and examine gender relations in the context of transnational migration. Using data from field work in 2006, ethnographic methods and concepts such as transmigration and social remittances, I analyse the social and cultural changes in a rural and indigenous Guatemalan town (municipio) located in the Guatemalan-Mexican border region. Here, like in many other towns of the region, male (trans-)migration to the USA has become a social and biographical norm. I stress (transborder) interactions and the relationships of migrants and residents of the municipio, new forms of social and political participation, as well as the emergence of new engendered and transcultural subjects like the „coyote“, the „norteño transeunte“ („passer-by“) and the „viuda blanca“ („white widow“). I argue that these subjects and various their forms of participation have developed and are performed at the margins of the institutions of the nation-state and are, likewise, beyond identification with the nation-state. Existing instead in communal spaces and transnational social fields, transcultural subjects are redefi ning local power relations along the lines of gender and ethnicity.