Are you a Citizen? Insights from Borderlands

This paper explores the meaning of citizenship in a border town along the US-Mexico boundary. The central theme is to analyze how boundaries between nations and identities remain permeable and contested; and how such negotiations are reflected in state–citizen relations. The city of El Cenizo, a colonia, in other words, low-cost, low-service, and semi-legal housing in border areas, serves as the study area. The paper analyzes how the real life meanings of citizenship are constantly changing because of different government policies and socio-political norms of engagement. It applies Lefebvre's notion of space to analyze “citizenship” beyond its legalistic definition and understand how the systematic rules of inclusion and exclusion shape the rights and privileges of the residents of El Cenizo.