Doctoral Dissertation Research: Legal and Oppositional Consciousness Among Actors in the Central American Refugee Movement

自2014年以来，数千名中美洲人逃离祖国，穿越墨西哥前往美国边境寻求庇护。为了应对来自中美洲的移民增加，美国政府实施了一系列旨在阻止移民的政策。这些政策非但没有劝阻中美洲的寻求庇护者，反而可能会在一些寻求庇护者及其美国法律的盟友（包括律师和法律的倡导者）中助长阻力。与美国的无证青年相比，寻求庇护者，特别是那些尚未进入民族国家物理边界的寻求庇护者，缺乏文化公民身份的要求，更不用说正式的公民身份了。然而，许多人对美国政府提出索赔。与此同时，广泛的律师和法律的倡导者正在与寻求庇护者接触，在寻求庇护者跨国过境之前和之后集体提供短期无偿法律的服务。与影响诉讼不同，传统上认为直接提供法律的服务不会导致社会变革，但它可能是社会运动参与的一种新形式。这些不同的参与者如何看待他们的行为？这些人认为自己是社会运动的一部分吗？如果是的话，法律和身份在他们如何将自己视为活动家方面发挥了什么作用，如果有的话，这种转变在美国内外是如何发生的？了解这些因素在煽动抵抗中所起的作用，将对我们理解社会运动和美国移民政策产生重要影响。将多地点的人种学实地研究与中美洲寻求庇护者和美国的访谈相结合，基于律师和法律的倡导者，这项研究将提供第一个系统的实证检查是否以及如何这些不同的演员来看待自己作为一个更广泛的运动的一部分，什么被称为发展的对立意识。贡献的社会运动，法律的专业和移民的文献，这个项目映射中美洲难民运动的社会领域的行为者之间的意识，并生成一个理论模型，通过分析寻求庇护者，律师和法律的倡导者开始将自己视为社会运动的一部分的过程。本研究着重于寻求庇护者跨国越境之前、期间和之后的意识发展，特别审查了法律和执法的惩罚性政策如何塑造行为者的意识;行为者的身份，包括寻求庇护者的身份和职业身份如何影响意识的发展;该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Since 2014, thousands of Central Americans have fled their home countries and traveled across Mexico to the U.S. border to seek asylum. In response to increased migration from Central America, the U.S. government has implemented a number of policies meant to deter migration. Rather than dissuading Central American asylum seekers, these policies may foster resistance among some asylum seekers and their U.S. legal allies, including attorneys and legal advocates. In contrast to undocumented youth in the United States, asylum seekers, particularly those that have not yet entered the physical boundaries of the nation state, lack claims to cultural citizenship, let alone formal citizenship. Yet many make claims against the U.S. state. At the same time, a broad base of attorneys and legal advocates are engaging with asylum seekers, working en mass to provide short-term pro bono legal services both before and after asylum seekers' transnational border crossings. Unlike impact litigation, direct legal services provision is not traditionally thought to lead to social change, yet it may be a new form of social movement engagement. How do these diverse actors think about their actions? Do these individuals consider themselves part of a social movement? If so, what roles do law and identity play in how they come to see themselves as activists and how, if at all, does this shift across spaces inside and outside of the United States? Understanding the role these factors play in fomenting resistance will have critical implications for both our understanding of social movements and for U.S. immigration policy. Combining a multi-sited ethnographic field study with interviews with Central American asylum seekers and U.S.-based attorneys and legal advocates, this study will provide the first systematic empirical examination of whether and how these various actors come to view themselves as part of a broader movement, what has been called the development of oppositional consciousness. Contributing to the literature on social movements, the legal profession, and migration, this project maps consciousness among actors in the social field of the Central American refugee movement and generates a theoretical model for analyzing the processes through which asylum seekers, attorneys, and legal advocates begin to view themselves as part of a social movement. Focusing on the development of consciousness before, during, and after asylum seekers' transnational border crossing, the study particularly examines how law, and the punitive policies enforcing law, shapes actors' consciousness; how actors' identities, including the asylum seeking identity and professional identity, influence the development of consciousness; and how space mediates consciousness.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.