Comunicar el viaje. La representación de la experiencia transmigratoria de las mujeres en la prensa escrita mexicana

Abstract

Mexico is the country of origin of 81% of the immigrants into the U.S., the primary global centre of attraction of international migration. An increasing number of these undocumented migrants are of Central American origin, who need to pass through the Mexican territory to reach their final destination. This journey is considered as one of the most dangerous in the world. Migrant people are kidnapped, tortured by narcos as well as by Institutions. Women are exposed to systemic abuse, for their ethnic, gender, and legal identifications. Amnesty International reports the huge risk that women take: 6 out of 10 women who attempt the journey are sexually abused. My research is looking to analyze how the discourse on migrant women, in particular those of Central America, are constructed and the impact it has on the printed national medias in Mexico. I will also study the actual strategy that feminists are building to create a new narrative, as in the case of the feminist press agency CIMAC with its project “La otra ruta migratoria” (translation to English: “The other journey”). I argue that these crimes are the expression of a deep symbolic structure where language and communication work together in constructing a gender imaginary that colonize women.