The Golden Cage: The Production of Insecurity at the Nexus of Intimate Partner Violence and Unauthorized Migration in the United States

Abstract

Women's narratives show how ontological insecurity is produced throughout the on-going process that is undocumented/precariously documented migration from Mexico to the United States. This embodied sense of insecurity emerges at the nexus of intimate partner violence and the lack of a secure form of biopolitical personhood after crossing the border. Women's narratives show how biopolitical insecurities are present in familial interactions. In a sense, women's narratives reveal how families become sites of biopolitical enforcement. Intimate partners' threats and reminders of biopolitical insecurities intensify the interpersonal insecurities in a mutually reinforcing manner. The family becomes less and less of a safe haven due to abuses. At the same time, protections for women who suffer intimate partner violence are often channeled through the judicial system in the United States, precisely an arena where many undocumented/precariously documented women feel vulnerable. These women find themselves in a doub...

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