Ronald L. Mize 2008, - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Ronald L. Mize 2008,

Interrogating Race

,

Class

,

Gender And Capitalism Along The U

.

S

.-

Mexico Border

:

Neoliberal Nativism And

Maquila

Modes Of

Production. (excerpts)

Slide2

Theoretical themes:

Late

capitalism and neoliberal development projects

in US and Mexico

US policies: "

neoliberal nativism

.”

border

militarization, border crossings and citizenship, maquiladora circuits of

production

Industrial production on the border did not improve Mexico’s development

Deepened gendered

, raced, and classed

US-Mexican

labour

relations

US nativism has intensified the border security and militarization between Mexico US consider Mexicans as criminal “illegal aliens” Slide3

NAFTA’s impact:

Labor process of U.S. distribution centers and the circuit of commodities in a post-NAFTA era:

In the

Maquila

workplace Mexican women are

racialized

.

Mexican

women as disposable

bodies:

1993 -2005:

300 Mexican

women

were brutally murderedSlide4

IMF’s impact: Ravages

of neoliberal restructuring

fall on the

residents who reside in nations subject to free trade agreements, structural adjustment and austerity

programs

How do race, class, and gender articulate within capitalist social relations ?

How does neoliberalism shape lived experiences along the U.S.-Mexico border, and its articulation with nativism?

(three years of ethnographic research (from 1998-2001) in San Diego, California and its twin sister city of Tijuana, Baja California )Slide5

Militarization

and Mexican criminalization and construction as 'aliens'

describes

the economic linkages

in the border industrialization patterns

This view ensures production

and distribution of

maquila

assembled products.

“Neoliberal

nativism"

shows how

the free flow of commodities is eased in the era of NAFTA while the flow of people is

restricted

.Slide6

Nativism in US:

Military

doctrine of low-intensity conflict (LIC) has been applied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to 'defend' the southern

US border

e.g.: Patrolling of

the border (helicopters, night-vision equipment, electronic intrusion-detection ground sensors), operational tactics and strategies of border enforcement (combining police, military, and paramilitary forces

)

Overall

aim of social control of a targeted civilian population all embody

the LIC doctrine that the U.S. military operated in Vietnam, Somalia, Libya, Kuwait, Panama, Iraq, and Grenada.

Slide7

CRIMINALIZATION OF "ILLEGAL

ALIENS”:

Paramilitary

and hyper-militarized situation along the U.S.-Mexico border

intensified by citizen's

militias

that claim to defender "

America."

Slide8

DISPOSABLE LABOR AND ENGENDERING BORDER WORK IN

MAQUILADORAS

Maquiladora

assembly

plants: Mexican

state's 1965 Border Industrialization

Program

created a free trade border zone where U.S. companies

set

up assembly plants most often in Mexican state-financed industrial parks. Slide9

These plants encouraged Mexico’s internal

migrants to permanently settle in these cities.

By

1969, U.S. corporations such as RCA, Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Litton, General Electric, and other built 72 assembly plants.

Before NAFTA: 1992 :2080

plants,

with a

half million workers.

2007: 5000

plants,

with one

million workers,

maquila

labor in the 13 years since NAFTA was ratified.Slide10

Racialization

of free-trade development

strategies:

Mexicans who benefit as managers or as owners from neoliberalism are

European or

blancos

, whereas

At the bottom of the workforce are

maquila

operatives

who are mestizo

and indigenous

With

a federal minimum wage of US$5 per day, the Mexican state has

entered

into

NAFTA to

provide the cheap assembly labor and export agricultural commodities

NAFTA

facilitates the movement of people due to the increased emphasis on export agriculture in particularly southern Mexico

.

For

U.S. and increasingly Japanese and other multinational corporations using the maquiladoras as the main source of cheap labor, assembly plants were established and expanded to capitalize on the labor of predominately Mexican women

Slide11

Maquilas

Del Norte: Distribution Centers and The

Nafta

Circuit Of Commodities

U.S

. border region was touted as the growth corridor of the post-NAFTA trade and distribution economy

Female

workers in a

Tecate

, Mexico maquiladora

work

for approximately eight dollars per day (10 hours per day, 6 days a week) to assemble

school supplies

products.

In the distribution center, workers were sporadically employed and paid just above minimum wage with no fringe benefits.

In

the post-NAFTA era, the border region

is

favoured

for a

circuit of commodities that crisscrosses the border to maximize profits by reducing labor and duties costs Slide12

Unions and Teamsters:

Top

-down hierarchies reproduce the racialization of class relationships (regardless of whether the culprits are growers, capitalists, or labor elites

Slide13

The

Mexican-American

labour

contractor

in charge of the work crew,

berated workers using Spanish

explicative

to

ensure that his workers, or "

pendejos

estupidos

," would not make the same mistake again. Slide14

The managers were all male. Their secretaries as well as receptionists, order takers, and customer service agents were female. In the warehouse, all of the workers were male

.

Mexicans as lazy or stupid and thus deserving of $5 per day,

Mexican

women as easily controlled by male managers

.

Militarization

of the border and the lack of respect for

maquila

laborers leads to the callous view towards Mexican bodies as disposable. This marginalization can often serve as the basis for resistance

.

Slide15