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and methods ai7med at understanding current social phenomena. The nation-state is
continuously and progressively more subjected to changes and events that take place
outside its boundaries and frontiers. The transnational process involving the circulation
of capital, immigration, the dissemination of cultural symbols and cultural practices
makes the categorization of events such as “foreign”, “domestic,” “external” or “internal”
problematic. The U.S.-Mexico borderland is an area of study where the above clear-cut
and bipolar categories are difficult to apply to the everyday life and realities of
borderlanders.
The U.S.-Mexico borderland is a paradigm of crossing, intercultural exchanges,
circulation, resistance and negotiation and transnationalism because the border has
historically served as the main springboard for migrants from all over the world to enter
into the United States; it is the main crossing point of drug smuggling; it is an industrial
heaven for transnational assembly plants. As Barrera (1994), states, the border has
also being perceived as a cultural trench, cultural edge and cultural desert.
In order to recapture the geography of places involved in transnationalism and
globalization it is important to recapture concrete people, workers, communities and
more specifically, the many different work cultures, apart from the corporate culture and
transactions involved in transnational encounters. The first part of this paper provides a
brief introduction to the theoretical framework and methodology used in this study,
followed by an overview of the maquiladora industry in Cd. Juarez and some general
socio-economic characteristics of the city. The Third part of the paper is focused on the
analysis of the construction of working class young brown women by various agents and
the possible relationship with the femicide that is taking place in the border.
Theoretical framework.
Convention