Shadowed Lives

"One of the strengths of Chavez’s work here is that he takes one of anthropology’s guiding principles – which is cultural relativism – and he applies it by avoiding characterisations of undocumented people that are dehumanising or criminalising. The whole conversation about whether or not to use words like “undocumented” or “illegal” or “unauthorised” gets really complex. But Chavez clearly is careful about presenting these workers whose lives are embedded in these broader contexts. The thing about “illegal” is that it takes a law that’s been implemented by the state and applies it to a person. It characterises someone’s personhood by that law. When Chavez chooses to use the word “undocumented”, that reflects a broader approach to this question that looks at the lives of people and how they’re embedded in these broader political-economic processes that encourage undocumented migration. I can’t imagine doing this work and having it not be political. I don’t know what that would look like. How could it not be political? I think it’s survival-based in that humans are a social species. We don’t survive on our own – ever. I would hesitate to say there is something about Mexican culture or American culture that makes people particularly social or particularly apt to create networks. I think we all create and live embedded in social networks. We all tap into these networks to get the resources that we need. That’s true whether you live in sub-Saharan Africa or Norway or China or Mexico. However, having said that, the structure of employment does tend to be different for a lot of these low-wage jobs. So these networks might have an importance for, for example, agricultural workers that they wouldn’t have for a lawyer. If you’re a lawyer and you work in a law firm, your partners are not likely to ask you to recruit your friends to come and work with you. But in these lower-wage jobs that are deskilled, in which workers [have to] be tolerant of poor working conditions, often employers do recruit workers that way. They use employees’ networks to get employees."