Mujeres a la fuga. Narrativa del viaje como vehículo de resistencia para las mujeres en tránsito por México [Women on the run. Narrative of the journey as a vehicle of resistance for women in transit through Mexico]

Migrants in transit through Mexico face a heavy bureaucratic machinery aimed at preventing them from reaching the United States. In Mexico, women continue to be neglected by the relevant authorities and abused by individuals who devalue their lives and profit from their bodies. Despite the growing literature on the dangers faced by migrant women and children in transit through Mexico, the authorities and much of the academic community continue to treat migrant women as passive subjects and the specific violence they face in Mexico as a side effect of other problems in the country related to the increasing activity of organized crime. Applying Achille Mbembe’s concepts of necropolitics and the critique of black reason, as well as narrative studies, this article develops a critical analysis of the narrative of the migration process told by migrant women living in a shelter in Mexico City as a mechanism for (re)interpreting the journey and the women. The migration journey thus appears as a non-linear process marked by their traumas and fears, but also by their strengths and strategies for moving forward. The women, most of whom are responsible for their children, appear in the story as interesting subjects, traversed by multiple and changing realities with autonomy, agency and political identity. In this sense, we show how women’s narratives act as a vehicle of resistance.