Feminicide in Juárez: Economic change, social narratives and colonial discourses on the border of the United States and Mexico

Abstract

Feminicide in Juárez: Economic change, social narratives and colonial discourses on the border of the United States and Mexico
Since May 1993, in Ciudad Juárez, hundreds of women have been murdered, raped, tortured and mutilated and thousands are still missing. This article begins by highlighting the link between the economic changes generated by the North American Free Trade Agreement and the destabilization of gender roles in northern Mexico, which originated new outbreaks of violence against women. Second, it exposes the dialectic that underlies patriarchal models rooted in Mexican culture, which are on the basis of social narratives that excuse the oppressor and blame the victim. Finally, the article addresses the centrality of miscegenation in the imperialist and colonial discourse of the Juárez feminicide, also relating it to the border and the hybridity of female bodies historically and culturally pluralized.