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Lifelong Learners Lecture: The Politics of Mobility in Southern Mexico

Date & Time:
September 12, 2017 | 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Location:
cSPACE (formerly King Edward High School) 1721 29 Ave. SW, Room 310

PhD candidate and LARC Visiting Fellow Victoria Simmons, Carleton University, will present research on the politics of migration in southern Mexico as part of the Calgary Association of Lifelong Learners (CALL) Latin American Issues series on Tuesday September 12, 2017, 1:30-3pm at the cSPACE (formerly King Edward High School) 1721 29 Ave. SW, Room 310. Free and open to the public.

For information on the partnership between CALL and LARC, visit larc.ucalgary.ca/ or CALL.

In the 1990s, migrants began riding atop the railway cars of cargo trains as part of their journeys through Mexico to the United States. Over the years, many migrants have been injured or killed in train accidents and violent encounters with street gangs, drug cartels and state officials. Migrants have also encountered shelter, food, spiritual and other supports from diverse local and international actors who inhabit the railways. The media has consistently documented all these occurrences, making Mexico’s railways a regular window through which to see and perform spectacles of ‘illegal’ migration and security crisis in the Americas.  In this lecture, I present the findings of my field research into the cargo train popularly known as La Bestia, or ‘The Beast that Devours Migrants,’ as a means of stimulating new perspectives and conversations about the politics of mobility in southern Mexico and beyond.