Migration and Development? The Gendered Costs of Migration on Mexico's Rural “Left Behind”

Abstract

Governments, civil society, and policymakers assert the potential of international migration to foster development and alleviate poverty. Often such claims are rooted in macroscale geopolitical analyses of migration and development, which mask the localized, uneven, and embodied ways family members “left behind” bear the costs and subsidize the U.S./Mexico (inter)national integration project. Informed by feminist geopolitics, this article demonstrates how the left behind disproportionately bear the hidden costs of neoliberal restructuring and migration. We draw upon Mexican Migration Project () ethnosurvey data to frame the narratives of migrant family members left behind. Narratives were constructed through in‐depth interviews conducted in rural Veracruz. We conclude that in the absence of geographically specific examinations of the hidden costs associated with neoliberal development and migration it is possible that “migration for development” programs and policies may exacerbate inequities that will perpetuate migration and further weaken Mexican origin communities.