Cartographies of violence towards migrant minors in northeastern Mexico

Abstract

The objective of this article is to explore the violence experienced by unaccompanied migrant minors, who travel to the United States through Tamaulipas, in the northeast of Mexico. Based on Galtung's approach to the "triangle of violence", it is argued that the construction of cartographies allows us to identify how different actors −legal and paralegal− produce and reproduce forms of structural, direct and cultural violence towards migrant minors. The work is based in a project on the physical and emotional effects of violence among migrant minors, specifically on the partial data of a non-probabilistic survey, as well as on informal interviews with some migrant minors. The results show that there are different types of violence, articulated with each other, that violate migrant minors who travel through a region characterized by criminal violence and the violation of human rights.

Keywords

• menores
• migración
• frontera
• violencia