Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: A Social Science Investigation of Violence along the Migrant Trail in Mexico

亚利桑那大学研究生温迪沃格特，由博士琳达B。绿色将对中美洲移民通过墨西哥前往美国所经历的暴力进行研究。墨西哥已成为中美洲移民希望抵达美国的主要过境国。这些移民越来越多地遭遇暴力，特别是在危地马拉和墨西哥城之间。沃格特的研究将集中在是什么产生了这种暴力以及为什么它在最近几年有所增加。沃格特将采用多种方法的方法。她将利用墨西哥南部和墨西哥城的档案记录来记录政府对移民政策的变化，以及移民所经过的社区最近经济模式的变化。除了档案部分外，沃格特还将确定移民路线上沿着的三个关键社区。在这些社区中，她将采用民族志的方法，如参与观察，结构化和半结构化的采访，口述历史的启发。这些数据将使沃格特一方面能够将当地经验与更大的国家和国际进程联系起来，另一方面能够确定这些外部因素如何通过中美洲移民和墨西哥当地居民之间的日常社会关系在当地得到调节。这项研究是重要的，因为它将有助于社会科学理论如何在国家和国际进程的变化与区域和当地的生活连接。这项研究还可能有助于制定政策，保护移徙者和他们所经过的社区免遭不断升级的暴力。最后，这项研究将有助于培养社会科学家，从人类学角度关注这一旅程将有助于更全面地了解移徙进程和暴力如何不仅影响移徙者，而且以有意义的物质方式重塑多个行为体的生活。

University of Arizona graduate student Wendy Vogt, advised by Dr. Linda B. Green, will undertake research on the violence experienced by Central American migrants travelling through Mexico to the United States. Mexico has become a major transit country for Central American migrants hoping to reach the United States. Increasingly, these migrants have violent encounters, particularly between Guatemala and Mexico City. Vogt's research will be focused on what produces this violence and why it has increased in recent years.Vogt will employ a multi-methods approach. She will use archival records in southern Mexico and Mexico City to document changes in government policies towards immigrants as well as recent changes in economic patterns in the communities through which the migrants pass. In addition to the archival component, Vogt will identify three key communites along the migrant trail. In each of these communities she will employ ethnographic methods such as participant observation, structured and semi-structured interviews, and oral history elicitation. These data will allow Vogt to link local experiences with larger national and international processes, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to determine at how these external factors are mediated locally through everyday social relations between and among Central American migrants and local Mexican residents. This research is important in that it will contribute to social science theory about how changes in national and international processes connect with regional and local lives. The research also may contribute to developing policies for protecting both migrants and the communities through which they pass from escalating violence. Finally, the research will contribute to the education of a social scientist.An anthropological focus on the journey will contribute to a more complete understanding of how migration processes and violence impact not only migrants, but reshape the lives of multiple actors in meaningful and material ways.