ILR Special Presentation: Adrián Félix: Specters of Belonging: The Political Life Cycle of Mexican Migrants

  • Ives Faculty Building, 281 Doherty Lounge

As the U.S. hardens its border with México, how do Mexican migrants make transnational claims of citizenship from the margins of both nation-states? Drawing on a wide array of sources—from political ethnographies of citizenship classes and transnational ethnography with cross-border migrant activists—Adrián Félix examines the political lives (and deaths) of Mexican migrants in Specters of Belonging. Tracing transnationalism across the different stages of the migrant political life cycle—beginning with the so-called political baptism of naturalization and ending with the necropolitical practice by which migrant bodes are repatriated to México for burial after death—Specters of Belonging reveals the varied ways in which Mexican transnational subjects enunciate, enact and embody citizenship in the U.S. and México. As such, this study unearths how Mexican migrants’ specters of belonging perennially haunt the political projects of nationalism, citizenship and democracy on both sides of the border.

Adrián Félix earned his Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Southern California. His research on the politics of migration, diaspora, transnationalism and citizenship has been published in the leading journals in his fields, including American Quarterly, Latin American Research Review and, most recently, Latino Studies. His first book, Specters of Belonging: The Political Life Cycle of Mexican Migrants is the inaugural title in the series on Studies in Subaltern Latina/o Politics with Oxford University Press. Dr. Félix previously taught in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is currently an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.