De país de origen a frontera extendida: transformaciones históricas de la movilidad por México

Abstract

Abstract

From a historical and critical perspective, this chapter analyzes the transformation of Mexico within the Mesoamerican migratory corridor. Drawing on academic, institutional, and humanitarian sources, it demonstrates that mobility through Mexico is not a recent phenomenon, but rather the result of long-term structural processes: inequality, state and criminal violence, economic reforms, the externalization of border control, and regional securitization. The text reconstructs three central dimensions: the historical configuration of mobility in Mexico; the consolidation of Mexico as a territory of transit and an extended border; and the impact of securitization policies on the production of new routes, subjects, and forms of violence. It argues that the combination of militarization, administrative mechanisms, criminal violence, and geopolitical pressures has generated a migration regime that unevenly distributes mobility and risk. It also examines how migrants reorganize routes, form caravans, and deploy strategies of agency in the face of a system centered on containment. The article concludes that understanding mobility in Mexico requires abandoning the view of transit as a conjunctural phenomenon and instead situating it within a historical trajectory shaped by structural violence, state control, and persistent struggles for life.