After almost 10 months of arduous work, several major revisions, a few rounds of minor revisions, an article I began working on at the end of January 2022 passed the strict double-blind peer review process.
Entitled "Territories of migrancy and meaning: The emotional politics of borderscapes in the lives of deported Mexican men in Tijuana", this article discusses how Mexican deportees find meaning and negotiate their agency in the borderscape and borderland of Tijuana, Mexico. Established through vice tourism, Tijuana has figured prominently as a site for expressions of migrancy. Within the expressions of migrancy, deported migrants find themselves in constant states of in-betweenness in systems of mediation. Through in-depth interviews with deported Mexican men living in temporary male-centric shelters, I identify and examine the issues of mobility ‘through the body’ of deported migrants, highlighting the politics of emotions, of being, and of seeing. Through analysis of the phenomenology of migration through Tijuana, I highlight the overreaching situated positions of permanent temporality mediating the lives of deported Mexican men. This perspective, therefore, sheds a necessary light on an often overlooked and marginalized condition of the migrant population.
You can access this article, for free, at https://doi.org/10.1177/136787792211447
You can download the article here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/13678779221144758
Behind the scenes:
Writing this article was an extremely intense process, whereby at least three other papers surged as ideas branched into different areas. It was also a testament to the kindness of a few renowned researchers who reached out to invite me to write. I am still astonished by their kind and generous time and attention devoted to mentoring my writing, guiding me to improve the presentation of my ideas, helping me clarify my meanings and strengthen my intentions.
With so many rewrites, I became blinded to some minor spelling mistakes that I now see in this article. With so many rewrites, I was tempted to rewrite the whole article -again.
Nevertheless, this whole process was an invaluable experience in not only organizing, presentation, and socializing my research but also how to be a researcher. I will keep in mind the generosity of these fine researchers who "rocked my world" by extending an invitation to publish, and taking a significant amount of time to mentor my ideas. Thank you!
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