BORDERING THE FUTURE: RESISTING NEOLIBERALISM IN THE BORDERLANDS

In the last 20 years, & especially since NAFTA, the US-Mexico border has been a site of intensive neoliberal development, particularly in the growth of 2,340 export-processing plants (maquiladoras), 90% US owned. The economic growth this has helped to promote has been both rapid & uneven, & the burdens it has placed on local communities through impoverished conditions of work & life have been immense -- no where more so than in Tijuana. Although much of this growth & the associated social & environmental problems have been the subjects of many policy, academic, & journalistic discussions, Tijuana's local community organizations, which have attempted to meet local needs & formulate alternative development paradigms, have not. Based on interviews with community organization representatives in the San Diego/Tijuana region, this text argues that a more complete understanding of these movement efforts to resist neoliberalism, especially the alternative visions for development they construct, are crucial to any understanding of neoliberalism generally, transnational social movements, & more democratic labor & environmental policy. These alternative paradigms differ radically from those promoted by capital & states on both sides of la frontera, & potentially offer a more participatory, democratic, & sustainable form of transnational development, for Mexico & all of North America. 127 References. Adapted from the source document.