Sarah Lynn Lopez
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226105130
- eISBN:
- 9780226202952
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226202952.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the Mexican state’s intervention into remittance building practices (often referred to as remittance development) through a spatial analysis of their Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. ...
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This chapter examines the Mexican state’s intervention into remittance building practices (often referred to as remittance development) through a spatial analysis of their Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Despite its democratic and transparent nature, 3x1 creates a top-down institutional space that channels emigrants’ informal remittances sent through Hometown Associations to government projects that migrants initiate but do not fully control. Ultimately, the 3x1 program extends the logic of the remittance house: stretching communities across disparate geographies can result in material change at home. Yet as the unit of analysis shifts from family to community and an increasing number of actors are involved, more is at stake and the complexities and consequences of long-distance building are amplified. This chapter argues that a spatial analysis of 3x1 reveals a remittance development model that formalizes migrant building practices and institutionalizes their roles as long-distance hometown boosters.Less
This chapter examines the Mexican state’s intervention into remittance building practices (often referred to as remittance development) through a spatial analysis of their Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Despite its democratic and transparent nature, 3x1 creates a top-down institutional space that channels emigrants’ informal remittances sent through Hometown Associations to government projects that migrants initiate but do not fully control. Ultimately, the 3x1 program extends the logic of the remittance house: stretching communities across disparate geographies can result in material change at home. Yet as the unit of analysis shifts from family to community and an increasing number of actors are involved, more is at stake and the complexities and consequences of long-distance building are amplified. This chapter argues that a spatial analysis of 3x1 reveals a remittance development model that formalizes migrant building practices and institutionalizes their roles as long-distance hometown boosters.
Sarah Lynn Lopez
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226105130
- eISBN:
- 9780226202952
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226202952.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly ...
More
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly defining—and linking—Mexican pueblos and U.S. cities. The movement of people across borders has been paralleled by the flow of capital; money sent from migrants in the U.S. to families in their homelands—remittances—constitutes the largest remittance corridor in the world. Using remittances as a lens to both contribute to and critique contemporary migration discourse, this book unearths the spatial and material practices that define endemic migration as a way of life. Arguing that the physical and social environment produced by migration constitutes a “remittance landscape,” a formal analysis of migrant architecture (homes, public buildings, and infrastructure) is coupled with ethnography to explore how rapidly changing built environments shape migrant experiences. At the state level, countries like Mexico have recognized the importance of this economic flow, harnessing it through formal channels such as the Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Such government supported migrant development projects comprise a remittance development model that repositions economic migrants as boosters of emigrant villages and towns. Paradoxically, this model demonstrates newfound independence and agency for migrants amid the institutionalization of the distances, ambiguities and ambivalences associated with the geographic and social fragmentation of families and communities. The book concludes with an analysis of migrants’ transborder spatial practices in Chicago, showing how urbanism north of the border is actually composed of, and produced by, processes that span international boundaries.Less
While so-called transnational migration has occurred between Mexico and the U.S. for over a hundred years, at the turn of the twenty-first century the spaces produced by migration are increasingly defining—and linking—Mexican pueblos and U.S. cities. The movement of people across borders has been paralleled by the flow of capital; money sent from migrants in the U.S. to families in their homelands—remittances—constitutes the largest remittance corridor in the world. Using remittances as a lens to both contribute to and critique contemporary migration discourse, this book unearths the spatial and material practices that define endemic migration as a way of life. Arguing that the physical and social environment produced by migration constitutes a “remittance landscape,” a formal analysis of migrant architecture (homes, public buildings, and infrastructure) is coupled with ethnography to explore how rapidly changing built environments shape migrant experiences. At the state level, countries like Mexico have recognized the importance of this economic flow, harnessing it through formal channels such as the Tres Por Uno (3x1) program. Such government supported migrant development projects comprise a remittance development model that repositions economic migrants as boosters of emigrant villages and towns. Paradoxically, this model demonstrates newfound independence and agency for migrants amid the institutionalization of the distances, ambiguities and ambivalences associated with the geographic and social fragmentation of families and communities. The book concludes with an analysis of migrants’ transborder spatial practices in Chicago, showing how urbanism north of the border is actually composed of, and produced by, processes that span international boundaries.