Using 10 women's narratives, participant observation, archival research, and a focus group, this article analyzes women's social activism in a settler community in northern Mexico near the border. I argue that women's activism and emerging political consciousness provides a lens through which women critique structural violence and intimate partner violence and that ultimately provides new women-centered subjectivities. This article contributes to gender and social movements literature by examining the generation of a political consciousness engendered from women's grounded experience of living on the U.S./Mexico border. Furthermore, despite the unique sociopolitical conditions of the border, this article demonstrates that border residents have the agency to challenge, and more importantly, change their situation.
Adler-Hellman, Judith.1994. Mexican lives. New York: The New Press.
2.
Aguilar, C., and A. Chenard.1994. Is there a place for feminism in the revolution? In Compañeras: Voices from the Latin American women's movement, edited by G. Kuppers.London: Latin American Bureau.
3.
Anzaldua, Gloria.1987. Borderlands/La Frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
4.
Bandy, Joe, and Jackie Smith.2005. Coalitions across borders: Transnational protest and the neoliberal order. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
5.
Barrera, M.1991. Cafe con Leche. In Chicana lesbians, edited by Carla Trujillo.Berkeley : Third Woman Press.
6.
Bennett, V.1992. The evolution of urban popular movements in Mexico between 1968 and 1988. In The making of social movements in Latin America: Identity, strategy, and democracy edited by A. Escobar and S. Alvarez.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
7.
Bhavnani, Kum-Kum, J. Foran, and P. Kurian.2003. Feminist futures: Re-imagining women, culture and development. London and New York: Zed Books.
8.
Brooks, Ethel C.2007. Unraveling the garment industry: Transnational organizing and women's work. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
9.
Bush, Diane Mitsch.1992. Women's movements and state policy reform aimed at domestic violence against women: A comparison of the consequences of movement mobilization in the U.S. and India. Gender & Society6:587-608.
10.
Castells, Manuel.1983. The city and the grassroots. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
11.
Cohen, R., and M. Rai Shirin .2000. Global social movements. London and New York: Continuum .
12.
Corcoran-Nantes, Y.2003. Female consciousness or feminist consciousness? Women's consciousness raising in community based struggles in Brazil. In Feminist theory reader: Local and global perspectives, edited by C. R. McCann and K. Seung-Kyung.New York and London: Routledge.
13.
Coronado, I.2006. Styles, strategies, and issues of women leaders at the border. In Women and change at the U.S./Mexico border: Mobility, labor, and activism, edited by D. J. Mattingly and E. R. Hansen.Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
14.
Delgado-Gaitan, Concha.1993. Researching change and changing the researcher. Harvard Educational Review63:389-411.
15.
Diaz-Barriga, M.1998. Beyond the domestic and the public: Colonas participation in urban movements in Mexico City. In Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: Re-visioning Latin American social movements, edited by S. E. Alvarez, E. Dagnino, and A. Escobar.Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
16.
Dolhinow, R.2006. Mexican women's activism in New Mexico's colonias. In Women and change at the U.S./Mexico border: Mobility, labor, and activism, edited by D. J. Mattingly and E. R. Hansen.Tucson : The University of Arizona Press.
17.
Einwohner. R.L., J.A. Hollander, and T. Olson.2000. Engendering social movements: Cultural images and movement dynamics. Gender & Society14: 679-99.
18.
Escobar, Arturo.2001. Culture sits in places: Reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localization. Political Geography20:139-74.
19.
Ferree, Myra M., and S. Roth.1998. Gender, class, and the interaction between social movements: A strike of West Berlin day care workers. In Gender and social movements, part 1, special issue, Gender & Society12:626-48.
20.
Fine, Michelle.1989. The politics of research and activism: Violence against women. In Violence against women, special issue, Gender & Society3:549-58.
21.
Flores, Lisa A.2000. Reclaiming the "other": Toward a Chicana feminist critical perspective. International Journal of Intercultural Relations24:687-705.
22.
Fregoso, R.L.2007. Towards a planetary civil society. In Women and migration in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, edited by D. A. Segura and P. Zavella.Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
23.
García, Alma.1989. The development of Chicana feminist discourse. Gender & Society3:217-38.
24.
---. 1997. Voices of women of color: Redefining women's studies. Race, Gender, and Class4:11-28.
25.
Herzog, Larry.1990. Where north meets south: Cities, space, and politics on the U.S.-Mexico border. Austin: University of Texas Press.
26.
Ibarra, M de la Luz.2007. Buscando la vida: Mexican immigrant women's memories of home, yearning, and border crossings. In Gender and the borderlands: The frontiers reader, edited by Antonia Castaneda.Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.
27.
Kimmel, Michael S.1987. Men's responses to feminism at the turn of the century . Gender & Society1:261-83.
28.
Kopinak, Kathryn.2003. Globalization in Tijuana maquiladoras: Using historical antecedents and migration to test globalization models. Papeles de poblacion, julio/septiembre, numero 037. Toluca, Mexico: UNAM.
29.
Lara, O.2003. Arte, tierra y dignidad: An intervention in a subaltern community context. Honors thesis. Stanford University, Palo Alto.
30.
Lorey, David E.1999. The U.S./Mexican border in the twentieth century. Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books.
31.
Lugo, A.2000. Destabilizing the masculine, refocusing "gender": Men and the aura of authority in Michelle Z. Rosaldo's work. In Gender matters: Rereading Michelle Z. Rosaldo, edited by A. Lugo and B. Maurer.Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
32.
Mancillas, M.R.2002. Transborder collaboration: The dynamics of grassroots globalization. In Globalization on the line: Culture, capital, and citizenship at U.S. borders, edited by C. Sadowski-Smith.New York: Palgrave.
33.
Martínez, Theresa A.1996. Toward a Chicana feminist epistemological standpoint: Theory at the intersection of race, class, and gender. Race, Gender, and Class3:107-28.
34.
Melucci, Alberto.1989. Nomads of the present: social movements and individual needs in contemporary society. London: Hutchenson Radius.
35.
Moghadam, V.M.2001. Transnational feminist networks: Collective action in an era of globalization. In Globalization and social movements , edited by P. Hamel, H. Lustiger-Thaler, and M. Mayer.New York: Palgrave.
36.
Mohanty, Chandra.2003. Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham, NC and London : Duke University Press.
37.
Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa .1983. This bridge called my back: Writings by radical women of color. 2nd ed. New York: Kitchen Table, Women of Color Press.
38.
Nevins, Joseph.2002. Operation gatekeeper: The rise of the "illegal alien" and the making of the U.S.-Mexico boundary. New York and London: Routledge.
39.
Ortiz-Gonzalez, Victor M.2004. El Paso: Local frontiers at a global crossroads. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota.
40.
Pardo, Mary.1998. Mexican American women activists: Identity and resistance in two Los Angeles communities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
41.
Pena, Devon.1997. The terror of the machine: Technology, work, gender, and ecology on the U.S.-Mexico border. CMAS: University of Texas at Austin Press.
42.
Pena, Milagros.2007. Latina Activists across borders: Women grassroots organizing in Mexico and Texas. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
43.
Rosaldo, Renato.1993. Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston: Beacon Press.
44.
Russel y Rodríguez, Mónica.1998. Confronting anthropology's silencing praxis: Speaking of/from a Chicana consciousness. Qualitative Inquiry4:15-41.
45.
Sadowski-Smith, C.2002. Border studies, diaspora, and theories of globalization . In Globalization on the line: Culture, capital, and citizenship at U.S. borders, edited by C. Sadowski-Smith.New York: Palgrave.
46.
Safa, Helen Icken.1990. Women's social movements in Latin America. In Women and development in the Third World, special issue, Gender & Society4:354-69.
47.
Sandoval, Chela.2000. Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
48.
Segura, Denise A., and Patricia Zavella .2007. Women and migration in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands: A reader. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
49.
Smith, A.2005. Looking to the future: Domestic violence, women of color, the state and social change. In Domestic violence at the margins: Readings on race, class, gender and culture, edited by N. J. Sokoloff.New Brunswick: Rutger University Press.
50.
Smith, Michael. P., and Luis E. Guarnizo .1998. Transnationalism from below . Comparative urban and community research Vol. 6. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
51.
Staudt, Kathleen, and Irasema Coronado .2002. Fronteras no mas: Toward social justice at the U.S.-Mexico border. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
52.
Stephen, Lynn.1997. Women and social movements in Latin America: Power from below. Austin: University of Texas Press.
53.
Taylor, Verta.1999. Gender and social movements: Gender processes in women's self-help movements. In Gender and social movements, part 2, special issue, Gender & Society13:8-33.
54.
Téllez, Michelle.2005. Doing research at the borderlands: Notes from a Chicana feminist ethnographer. Chicana/Latina Studies: Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social4 (3): 46-70.
55.
Valenzuela-Arce, Jose Manuel.1991. Empapados de sereno: El movimiento urbano popular en Baja California (1928-1988). Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
