Struggling bodies at the border: migration, violence and HIV vulnerability in the Mexico/Guatemala border region.

Struggling bodies at the border: migration, violence and HIV vulnerability in the Mexico/Guatemala border region. Anthropol Med. 2019 Dec 05;:1-17 Authors: Muñoz Martínez R, Fernández Casanueva C, González O, Morales Miranda S, Brouwer KC Abstract The Mexico-Guatemala border is the site of significant movement of people whose principal destination is the USA. The first step, to cross Mexico, is considered as one of the most dangerous routes in the world for undocumented migrants. For some male migrants and displaced persons from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, initiating sex work in the Mexican border city of Tapachula has become a way to earn money to survive during the trip northward - providing funds to keep traveling and decrease the danger of being killed or kidnaped by organized crime groups. Non-injected drug use during sex work with men and/or women is a common praxis for this purpose, and is linked to HIV risk activities such as unprotected sex. Our study is based on ethnographic fieldwork with observation and interviews and within a relational approach understanding the processes subject/structure, sociopolitical/cultural and global/local, not as oppositions, rather as linkages visible through actors' points of view and praxis. The productions of politics and cultures related to structural vulnerability to HIV infection are embedded in local and global borderization processes where legal and illegal transnational f...
Source: Anthropology and Medicine - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Anthropol Med Source Type: research