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Illegality and Invisibility at Margins and Borders
Author(s) -
Galemba Rebecca B.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12027
Subject(s) - invisibility , principle of legality , legitimacy , scholarship , morality , power (physics) , vulnerability (computing) , political science , politics , sociology , law , criminology , physics , computer security , quantum mechanics , computer science , optics
Drawing from the scholarship on states and illegal practices and the author's fieldwork at the Mexico‐Guatemala border, this article posits new directions in the study of legitimacy, legality, and morality in borderlands. By making illegality central, the article reveals the politics and power dynamics that shape how people differentially experience the law. The article uses illegality as a theoretical lens to reexamine what constitute worthy subjects of research and standards for ethical and methodological practice.