Making a Killing
Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera
Published on 1. November 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
328 pages
978-0-292-72317-7 (ISBN)
Description
Since 1993, more than five hundred women and girls have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas. At least a third have been sexually violated and mutilated as well. Thousands more have been reported missing and remain unaccounted for. The crimes have been poorly investigated and have gone unpunished and unresolved by Mexican authorities, thus creating an epidemic of misogynist violence on an increasingly globalized U.S.-Mexico border.
This book, the first anthology to focus exclusively on the Juarez femicides, as the crimes have come to be known, compiles several different scholarly "interventions" from diverse perspectives, including feminism, Marxism, critical race theory, semiotics, and textual analysis. Editor Alicia Gaspar de Alba shapes a multidisciplinary analytical framework for considering the interconnections between gender, violence, and the U.S.-Mexico border. The essays examine the social and cultural conditions that have led to the heinous victimization of women on the border-from globalization, free trade agreements, exploitative maquiladora working conditions, and border politics, to the sexist attitudes that pervade the social discourse about the victims. The book also explores the evolving social movement that has been created by NGOs, mothers' organizing efforts, and other grassroots forms of activism related to the crimes. Contributors include U.S. and Mexican scholars and activists, as well as personal testimonies of two mothers of femicide victims.
This book, the first anthology to focus exclusively on the Juarez femicides, as the crimes have come to be known, compiles several different scholarly "interventions" from diverse perspectives, including feminism, Marxism, critical race theory, semiotics, and textual analysis. Editor Alicia Gaspar de Alba shapes a multidisciplinary analytical framework for considering the interconnections between gender, violence, and the U.S.-Mexico border. The essays examine the social and cultural conditions that have led to the heinous victimization of women on the border-from globalization, free trade agreements, exploitative maquiladora working conditions, and border politics, to the sexist attitudes that pervade the social discourse about the victims. The book also explores the evolving social movement that has been created by NGOs, mothers' organizing efforts, and other grassroots forms of activism related to the crimes. Contributors include U.S. and Mexican scholars and activists, as well as personal testimonies of two mothers of femicide victims.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Austin, TX
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-292-72317-7 (9780292723177)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, a native of the El Paso/JuArez border, is Professor and Chair of the CEsar ChAvez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA. She has published eight other books, including Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master's House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition.
Georgina GuzmAn is a PhD candidate in English at UCLA.
Georgina GuzmAn is a PhD candidate in English at UCLA.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Feminicidio: The "Black Legend" of the Border (Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Georgina GuzmAn)
Part One. Interventions
1. Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Elvia R. Arriola)
2. Poor Brown Female: The Miller's Compensation for "Free" Trade (Alicia Gaspar de Alba)
3. Ghost Dance in Ciudad JuArez at the End/Beginning of the Millennium (MarIa Socorro Tabuenca COrdoba)
4. Gender, Order, and Femicide: Reading the Popular Culture of Murder in Ciudad JuArez (Steven S. Volk and Marian E. Schlotterbeck)
Part Two. !Ni Una MAs!
5. Binational Civic Action for Accountability: Antiviolence Organizing in Ciudad JuArez/El Paso (Kathleen Staudt and Irasema Coronado)
6. The Suffering of the Other (Julia E. MonArrez-Fragoso)
7. The V-Day March in Mexico: Appropriation and Misuse of Local Women's Activism (Clara E. Rojas)
8. Femicide, Mother-Activism, and the Geography of Protest in Northern Mexico (Melissa W. Wright)
Part Three. Testimonios
9. "The Morgue Was Really from the Dark Ages": Insights from a Forensic Psychologist (Candice Skrapec)
10."We'll See Who Wins" (Eva Arce)
11. "The Government Has Tried to Divide Us" (Paula Flores)
12. Las Hijas de JuArez: Not an Urban Legend (Rigo Maldonado)
Afterword: Goddess Murder and Gynocide in Ciudad JuArez (Jane Caputi)
Appendix A: Selected Binational Timeline of the JuArez Femicides
Appendix B: The JuArez Femicides in Print, Film, and Music: A Partial List
Notes on Contributors
Index
Reprints and Permissions
Introduction: Feminicidio: The "Black Legend" of the Border (Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Georgina GuzmAn)
Part One. Interventions
1. Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border (Elvia R. Arriola)
2. Poor Brown Female: The Miller's Compensation for "Free" Trade (Alicia Gaspar de Alba)
3. Ghost Dance in Ciudad JuArez at the End/Beginning of the Millennium (MarIa Socorro Tabuenca COrdoba)
4. Gender, Order, and Femicide: Reading the Popular Culture of Murder in Ciudad JuArez (Steven S. Volk and Marian E. Schlotterbeck)
Part Two. !Ni Una MAs!
5. Binational Civic Action for Accountability: Antiviolence Organizing in Ciudad JuArez/El Paso (Kathleen Staudt and Irasema Coronado)
6. The Suffering of the Other (Julia E. MonArrez-Fragoso)
7. The V-Day March in Mexico: Appropriation and Misuse of Local Women's Activism (Clara E. Rojas)
8. Femicide, Mother-Activism, and the Geography of Protest in Northern Mexico (Melissa W. Wright)
Part Three. Testimonios
9. "The Morgue Was Really from the Dark Ages": Insights from a Forensic Psychologist (Candice Skrapec)
10."We'll See Who Wins" (Eva Arce)
11. "The Government Has Tried to Divide Us" (Paula Flores)
12. Las Hijas de JuArez: Not an Urban Legend (Rigo Maldonado)
Afterword: Goddess Murder and Gynocide in Ciudad JuArez (Jane Caputi)
Appendix A: Selected Binational Timeline of the JuArez Femicides
Appendix B: The JuArez Femicides in Print, Film, and Music: A Partial List
Notes on Contributors
Index
Reprints and Permissions