Euphemistic Rhetoric and Dysphemistic Practices: Governing Migration in Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper analyses Mexico’s governance of migration and its geopolitical moral dilemma: an enthusiastic champion for migrants’ human rights in the international sphere and a tough migration control enforcer. I consider this seemingly ambivalent and contradictory approach through the lens of euphemisms and dysphemisms, more specifically by analysing the use of euphemistic rhetoric and dysphemistic practices in the governance of migration. Through document analysis, I examine Mexico’s use of euphemistic rhetoric in its role as migration control enforcer, as well as in its positioning in the relation to the Global Compact on Migration. Drawing on the experiences of irregularised migrants in Mexico and information obtained though Freedom of Information Requests, I analyse three dysphemistic practices in migration management: (i) bureaucratic negligence, (ii) precarious infrastructure, and (iii) spatial fixation and waiting. The Mexican case illustrates the discrepancy between discourse and practice in migration management and is an example of the ambivalences of global migration governance, which instrumentalises euphemistic rhetoric while promoting and tolerating dysphemistic practices.