Joint European Master of International Migration and Social Cohesion University College Dublin | University of Deusto | University of Amsterdam
Dalinda Peña Habib
Securing ‘first-world’ citizenship: The role of capital in planned
transnational births by Mexican parents in the United States.
Supervisors
Dr. Steven Loyal | steven.loyal@ucd.ie | UCD
Dr. Andrea Ruiz Balzola | andrearuizbalzola@deusto.es | UD Dr. Sébastien Chauvin | chauvin@uva.nl | UvA
Declaration
I hereby declare that this thesis is the product of my own original work, and that it does not contain materials previously published by another person, except where due reference is made. I also state that I have been informed of the completion and assessment rules of the MISOCO Programme, within which this thesis is submitted.
Dalinda Peña Habib
"We live in a world defined by invisible meta-data and the Cloud, but the roughly 3x5 inch paper booklet known as the passport still carries a lot of weight. More than a simple grant of access into a country, passports and the visas they contain are a reflection of geopolitics, the relationship between two nations, and a country's stature relative to the rest of the world."
PREFACE ... 1
1. INTRODUCTION ... 2
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CITIZENSHIP AND CAPITAL ... 8
2.1. The notion of Citizenship in a transnational era ... 8
2.1.1. Citizenship and transnational human mobility ... 10
2.2. How is citizenship linked to capital? A Bourdieuian approach ... 11
2.2.1. Citizenship as a membership beyond territory and identity ... 15
2.2.2. Citizenship as a tool for improving social positions ... 18
2.3. Planned transnational births and its relation with citizenship and capital ... 19
2.4. Who can afford to plan a transnational birth? ... 21
2.4.1. The ‘traditional’ migrant profile ... 23
2.4.2. The tourist visa profile ... 25
3. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY: METHODS ... 28
3.1. About the sample ... 29
3.2. Reflexivity and ethical considerations ... 33
3.3. Limitations of the study ... 36
4. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: MEXICO-U.S. PLANNED TRANSNATIONAL BIRTHS AS A STRATEGY OF CAPITAL ... 41
4.1. Enabling capital: the importance of parent’s resources to practice a PTB ... 43
4.2. U.S. citizenship: motivations and pragmatic approaches ... 48
4.3. U.S. citizenship: detachment and issues of self-identification ... 51
4.4. The strategy’s outcomes: translations of capital through U.S. citizenship ... 53
5. OPENING NEW CONVERSATIONS ABOUT MIGRATION ... 58
5.1. Looking at privileged populations and challenging the ‘anchor’ notion ... 58
6. CONCLUSIONS ... 61
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 65
ANNEXES ... 71
Annex 1: Map of the sample and their families ... 71
Annex 2: Disclosure and consent form ... 72
Annex 3: Interview guide for mothers and/or fathers ... 74
Annex 4: Interview guide for (adult) children ... 78
Annex 5: About the Border Crossing Card ... 82
Annex 6: Compilation of quotes from online newspaper articles on the topic of PTBs ... 83 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 PREFACE
Thanks to all the participants of this study for their time and openness to share part of their lives with me. In their stories I found meaning and knowledge, and they are the ones who made this research possible.
Thanks to my supervisors Steven Loyal in Dublin, Andrea Ruiz in Bilbao and Sébastien Chauvin in Amsterdam, for their invaluable time, encouragement and feedback. Their academic guidance and their interest in my research was a strong motivation from the beginning, giving me confidence and filling me with enthusiasm along the research process.
Thanks to my parents, “adventurous and visionary”, and to my brother and sister, for sharing all my moments even from the distance. They have been my company during this journey and with them I have learned to observe, be kind, and enjoy the way.
The conclusion of this master program also brings me back to the reason why this all started: my final dedication goes to the Mexican immigrant community in the United States who, with very personal stories each one of them, from different contexts and through diverse paths, have left their homes in search of a better life. May the scholarship in migration studies succeed in contributing towards this same purpose.
2 1. INTRODUCTION
In a social world where memberships and credentials lead to resources and opportunities, citizenship and passports matter. While they entitle their holders to live in a country without restriction, together with rights and obligations, they can also be translated into other diverse forms of capital1. From formal structural inclusion to broader concepts such as safety and status, being a citizen of a country denotes a distinction from non-citizens and thus places its holders in a privileged position. And if this formal membership happens to be within a wealthy Western country, the chances of citizenship representing an advantage in life are significantly higher.
As Choules (2006) exemplifies it, the benefits of being born a citizen of a globally privileged country can be comparable to those of carrying with oneself one of the characteristics of the dominant groups, such as being male, white, heterosexual and able-bodied (p. 286). Each of these characteristics can be regarded as a tool which automatically positions people in a ‘lucky’ place where a vast variety of resources are more at hand. Many of these sources of privilege are fortuitous –e.g. being born a white male in a society with a majority of white males in positions of power–, but some of them can also be obtained by other means –e.g., acquiring citizenship of a developed country in which one has previously been an immigrant with limited rights–. In this latter group, vision and ambition play an important role in the
1 An expansion of the concept of ‘capital’ and its different forms is presented in chapter 2, in the section titled
3 processes by which people seek to secure for themselves and their families a more comfortable position in the social world.
In search of means to improve and expand their sources of privilege –and therefore, of safety, stability and financial comfort–, numerous strategies emerge. In the context of transnational movements and borders, one’s citizenship thus entails vital importance. Beyond migratory phenomena, people that are not currently immigrants also may aspire to secure privileged citizenship’s resources for potential future situations. For example, think of an Australian citizen with British descent –already privileged in the relative global context–; even if this person has a stable job and strong ties in Australia, the individual can increase his capital if he also becomes a British citizen. Under these new circumstances, the Australian-British citizen would be able to potentially live and work not only in Australia and Britain, but in the rest of the European Union as well. While being entitled to all the rights and obligations of a citizen in both countries, he would also be able to travel through these countries without restriction and without being subject to deportation. Likewise, in a situation of marriage or parenthood, the individual would have the possibility to extend both citizenships to his partner and/or offspring.
Therefore, as the previous example of a possible strategy shows, even when an individual is already situated in a position of relative privilege and does not require certain additional resource in the current moment, the possibility of expanding the existing capital and of investing in new potential sources of financial stability for the future can still be quite appealing, be it for oneself or with one’s offspring in mind. Within the group of strategies that are focused on one’s offspring we find the topic of the present research, in which Mexican parents with a relatively privileged position and a relatively stable source of income
4 seek to invest in their children’s future and in the expansion of their possibilities, through the planning of a transnational birth in the U.S. which might open up new opportunities for them. Planned transnational births –or PTBs, as they will be referred to from now on for practical aims– are the practice in which a pregnant woman enters a country that offers unconditional birthright citizenship with the intention of giving birth there and obtaining citizenship for her newborn. Habitually, mothers and couples who practice a PTB return to their country of origin with their child after this process. The media and colloquial language frequently label this practice as ‘birth tourism’ or ‘maternity tourism’.
This research addresses particularly the practice of PTBs carried out by Mexican mothers or parents who live close to the border and who travel lawfully to the neighboring country to give birth, since the principle of jus soli stated in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution indicates that every person born in the United States is entitled to become a U.S. citizen. In the type of practice that this research focuses on, the parents who perform a PTB are always in possession of a tourist visa or other type of permit that allows them to legally enter the U.S., and due to the regionalized nature of the practice, most of the entries occur by land. Furthermore, visiting the U.S. while pregnant in the possession of a valid visa is also a lawful practice, and expecting women should normally be granted entry into the country if they are able to display to the Customs and Border Protection Officer enough evidence of their intention to return home, as well as of having sufficient medical insurance to cover any medical expenses while staying in the U.S. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2014). This study mainly focuses on the practice of PTBs with the objective of analyzing the different factors of the process through which Mexican parents planned transnational births in the U.S. for one or more of their children, as well as the ways in which the underlying
5 motives for this practice have eventually transformed –or not, or not yet– into diverse forms of new capital in the lives of their U.S. born children.
Through a literature review on the notion of citizenship in relation to the Bourdieuian concept of capital, and the analysis of a series of in-depth interviews with families –Mexican parents and their children2– who have practiced a PTB in the U.S., this thesis intends to explore the underlying factors and sources of capital which influenced and allowed the decision of the
parents to carry out a PTB, comparing them to the realities experienced by their offspring. Therefore, the resulting analysis attempts to explain how, through the strategy of PTBs, U.S. citizenship can be translated into new and diverse forms of capital for these children
who were born in the United States but have grown up in Mexico, having U.S. citizenship as an additional tool that aims to secure more opportunities in their lives.
PTBs, mainly termed ‘birth tourism’ or ‘maternity tourism’, have been discussed before as acts or practices per se within the context of political debates and from the media perspective, but the sociological causes and consequences of the practice, mainly the real outcomes in the lives of the U.S. born children, remain understudied. Additionally, when citizenship has been studied as a form of capital for transnational populations, it has usually addressed the case of
2 The terms ‘children’ and ‘offspring’ are used in this work to refer to the U.S. born individuals whose parents
practiced a PTB. Nevertheless, the term ‘children’ does not imply that the sample of the study consists of minors; in fact, for the purposes of the research –which seeks to analyze the ways in which U.S. citizenship has been perceived and used through time–, the interviewed participants that I here address as ‘children’ or ‘offspring’ were all adults, ranking from 22 to 33 years old.
6 immigrants who already reside in the U.S. and who seek to become citizens to improve their social position within the same country. However, in this research the focus is set on individuals who do not necessarily intend to acquire U.S. citizenship for their children as a tool to for them to migrate permanently or immediately to the neighboring country. This research seeks to outline the other actual forms of use that it has for this group, presenting PTBs as a strategic practice that goes beyond traditional forms of migration but pursues other complex forms of capital implied in U.S. citizenship.
As mentioned above, there is a scarcity of academic literature related to PTBs, which makes it difficult to develop a literature review specifically on the topic. Nonetheless, the following chapter 2 discusses some existing literature that sheds light on the study of PTBs. With the concepts of ‘citizenship’ and ‘capital’ as departure points for an introductory theoretical framework, the chapter discusses the notion of citizenship and its complexities within the context of transnational phenomena; likewise, it analyzes the relationship between citizenship and capital, through the idea that the former may represent different forms of privilege and resources that go beyond the values traditionally attached to citizenship. Before transitioning to the next chapter, the practice of PTBs is introduced, describing it in more detail in the context of Mexican parents traveling to the U.S., particularly from the northern border area of Mexico. This section explains how PTBs exemplify in a novel way the relationship between citizenship and capital.
Afterwards, chapter 3 presents a methodological introduction to the study which was carried out in order to complete this research, describing the main aspects of the fieldwork experience and the sample of the study. Taking reflexivity into account, together with other ethical considerations, this chapter also discusses my personal experience as a researcher and the
7 ways in which I strived to handle the different circumstances of the study. Lastly, a series of important limitations of the research are described, with the intention of taking them into consideration before moving into the following chapter, which –within this limitations– addresses and interprets the main findings of the practice of PTBs.
The analysis of the study and the main results are included in chapter 4, summarized in the idea that PTBs are a strategy that requires previous forms of ‘enabling’ capital for the parents to be able to perform it, while it represents an investment to expand and create more future capital in the lives of their offspring. Among other findings, it describes how U.S. citizenship may be seen as a pragmatic tool for securing life opportunities beyond its traditional values related to territory and belonging.
Chapter 5 takes the reader closer to the end of this discussion by showing how PTBs can open new conversations about migration, letting us pose questions that academics have not asked before. Although the media and political debates address this practice more frequently, they often do so in misleading and incomplete ways, ignoring the roles of capital and privilege that allow PTBs to occur, and associating the practice with other migratory phenomena that have actual fundamental differences.
Finally, the last and sixth chapter contains the conclusions of the research, offering a recapitulation of the previous chapters and of the main concepts and ideas discussed throughout them. This is complemented with overall reflections about PTBs in the context of Mexico and the U.S., showing what links them with other migratory practices, and offering further questions and spaces of discussion that remain to be addressed in the future.
8 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CITIZENSHIP AND CAPITAL
2.1. The notion of Citizenship in a transnational era
The concept of citizenship refers to the formal and full membership of an individual in a community or state. This concept has evolved dynamically through history, being “a notion under continuous revision” and transformation (Gálvez 2013, p. 721). For example, although in the beginning of the 1990s Brubaker (1992) wrote that citizenship was a powerful instrument which occupied a central place administratively and politically in the nation-state and in the state (Brubaker 1992), other authors later argued that citizenship was losing its relevance, that the link between nation and state was severely eroded, and that citizenship as an institution had only a light fate (Soysal 1994; Castles & Davidson 2000; Joppke 2010). A perspective that sought to complement both ideas acknowledged the current relevance of international law and global pressures, but argued that states –and thus their memberships– remained the main structure of social and political organization (Bauböck 2010).
This research proposes that citizenship is more valuable than ever as a membership and as a means for excluding non-members from its benefits. One of its most substantial features is that it can be translated into different forms of social, cultural and economic capital, such as admission into a country’s territory, and entitlement to its social benefits, its legal protection, its labor market, and its voting system, among other aspects. Likewise, citizenship of a developed country facilitates access to the living standards of a wealthy state, and offers a shortcut to a secure and financially stable life that would otherwise, if the individual was not
9 in possession of an official membership of the state in question, require several external factors and resources to take place.
The notion of citizenship is indeed being redefined at the local and international levels, but although some of the links between nation and state may be becoming more fragile, and institutions such as international law and universal human rights are becoming more and more relevant to protect and empower non-citizens, citizenship remains a powerful tool, for the citizens of a country have access to significant advantages which are not available to non-citizens. The transformation of the notion of citizenship in the context of contemporary transnational phenomena and human mobility serve to reaffirm the importance of citizenship –especially when it refers to a developed country– as an unequaled asset and form of capital for its holders.
In the academic discussions about citizenship mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the focus of the authors discussed does not present enough background for the analysis of citizenship in relation to transnational phenomena within unequal countries which may, for instance, ‘share’ citizens through dual citizenship. Moreover, they neither consider the specificities of more complex approaches such as that of PTBs, a long-term strategy that links capital and citizenship, and where the latter is initially ‘exercised’ from a different territory. Turning towards a new and more specific analytical perspective to study the transformations of citizenship in the global era, this work examines the practice of PTBs, finding that citizenship scholarship is still fundamentally incomplete in order to explain complex transnational phenomena such as this one, which challenges the ways in which citizenship is perceived, sought, and exercised.
10 2.1.1. Citizenship and transnational human mobility
As Joppke (2010) proposes, the contemporary trends in international human mobility demand “a more dynamic and comprehensive understanding of the inter-relationships between the dimensions of citizenship and immigration” (p. 153). As a result of transnational human flows, some countries have actively revised the particular values and features that citizenship represents to them. The U.S., one of the ‘nations of immigrants’ par excellence –both in its origins as in the present day–, constitutes an interesting example. Given its historically plural composition, it cannot portrait citizenship in terms of ethnic or racial ties –in the way that, for example, Germany or Japan could–, and thus expresses it as the tool through which members commit to achieve a certain culture and identity that is expected as part of being ‘American’. Although the historical context is clearly different in Western European countries, recent increases in migration trends have also influenced the ways in which citizenship is portrayed by these states. Houdt and colleagues (2011) found a similar pattern to the one from the U.S. in which citizenship is employed by the state as a form of nation-building within those who acquire it through naturalization processes, arguing that the emerging tendency aims to represent citizenship as something to be “earned” by the individual (p. 423).
This series of transformations in the portrayals of citizenship by different states shows that the traditional meanings of it as a national identity and attachment to a historical territory are being contested. But it is important to look as well at the transformations of citizenship not only from the point of view of the institutions but of those who exercise it: the citizens. For instance, for the mobile, immigrant, and other transnational populations, citizenship may signify an interesting series of things. For example, in the case of immigrants, Gálvez (2013)
11 considers that citizenship from a hosting state may be seen as a mean for greater mobility, for achieving a more empowered position in the new territory, and for mitigating the risks and harms of formal systematic exclusion (p. 730).
The notion of citizenship evolves continuously, and it can be better understood as a dynamic institution that is being profoundly transformed by migration and other transnational phenomena, at both institutional and personal levels. In fact, Joppke describes that international migration has been a fundamental transformative factor of the institution of citizenship, triggering a tendency towards its de-nationalization (Joppke 2010). Indeed, human mobility has, in these and many other ways, built and altered the formalities and meanings of citizenship; nevertheless, in spite of all these transformations and the growing relevance of other institutions and sources of rights and protection, citizenship continues to be a powerful and empowering tool that strongly influences the opportunities of individuals, through the different ways in which it can represent capital and advantage in the lives of its holders.
2.2. How is citizenship linked to capital? A Bourdieuian approach
As a general notion, the concept of capital is easily understood in common language. To alternate the term and paraphrase the concept to the reader, this thesis frequently uses other words such as ‘resources’, ‘means’, or ‘assets’ to refer to capital as well. But it is important to go into detail about what it should be understood for ‘capital’ within this text.
One of the main authors to engage with this concept was the French social scientist Pierre Bourdieu. Using his texts and theories as a background, three fundamental species of capital
12 can be analyzed: economic, cultural and social.3 Economic capital is the one which can be directly translated into money, such as a house, a car, or a bank account; cultural capital is often associated with knowledge and qualifications, like academic degrees or languages; finally, social capital accounts for all the connections and networks that individuals may have, and which are often institutionalized through memberships, titles, or influential positions. Bourdieu remarks that these multiple forms of capital can help to explain the structure and dynamics of our unequal societies (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992, p. 119), because accumulation of capital translates into accumulation of power. In brief, capital refers to any effective resource “that enables one to appropriate the specific profits arising out of participation and contest” in a given social sphere (Wacquant 2007, p. 268).
Bourdieu names these spheres which compose the social world ‘fields’, which are the diverse social arenas in which we interact in our daily lives: for example, economy, religion, politics, art, etc. The capital that we possess or lack is what positions us within these fields, giving us all a relational position of advantage or disadvantage in comparison to the other agents or individuals who share our fields or spheres of interaction.
After having recurrently discussed that citizenship can be translated into different forms of capital, one may picture an example involving both –citizenship and the forms of capital it may entail– and the ways in which one’s citizenship contributes to define our position of advantage or disadvantage in the social world. To present an example less obvious than the one of a citizen and an undocumented immigrant living in the same country, we may go
3 A fourth, more abstract type is the ‘symbolic’ capital, which may be a figurative consequence of any of the
13 beyond the values of citizenship within its territory and think of its external dimensions of capital.
Imagine a U.S. citizen who wants to travel to the Catalonian popular destination of Barcelona for a holiday. Her membership from the North American country, which can be perceived as a form of social capital, allows her to enter the Spanish territory without a visa and to stay for up to 90 days, with the possibility of extending her stay up to 180 days if meeting certain conditions. If unfortunately the traveler got her passport stolen or needed any consular assistance, she would be able to visit the U.S. consulate in Barcelona or the embassy in Madrid to receive support and have her documents replaced. As a representation of her cultural capital, speaking English as a native language would allow the U.S. citizen to interact fluently within the tourist sphere in Barcelona, even if Catalan and Spanish are the official local languages. She would, for example, find English leaflets or information in every museum, hotel, information center, or most touristic attraction she visits. In terms of economic capital, to continue expanding this example, one may imagine that the U.S. citizen would have a travel budget in U.S. Dollars, which at the moment share a very convenient exchange rate with the Euro4 and thus would allow the traveler’s budget to remain profitable. The trip to Barcelona would not represent an ‘odyssey’ for this character, since the different forms of capital that this person has access to for the mere fact of being a U.S. citizen make the planning and execution of the trip an attainable and relatively simple goal. Her position in the social world is determined by her capital, which locates her in a quite privileged place
4 Although the number is in constant change, by the second half of April 2015 the exchange rate was
14 in comparison to other country nationals with less benefits. Furthermore, if this hypothetical traveler was an individual from one of the EU member countries instead of a U.S. citizen, she would have an additional asset that would allow her to accumulate even more capital to build an even more privileged position. For example, if while travelling this person wanted to find a temporary job to increase her budget for future journeys, as a citizen of the EU she would be able to do it.
In contrast, picture an individual from a less advantaged country in the international scenario with intentions of planning a similar trip. An individual from Tajikistan, for instance, would require a visa to enter Spain, but since there is no Spanish embassy in her country, the planner of the trip would have to apply for a Schengen visa through the German embassy in Dushanbe (applying in the nearest Spanish consulate for Tajik nationals would not seem convenient as it is located in Astana, Kazakhstan, approximately 2,000 km away from the Tajik capital). Since Tajik citizenship seems to possess less amounts of social capital in terms of the relationships it holds with Western European countries, in order to be able to visit one of the Schengen states the Tajik traveler would be demanded to pay for a visa fee, to show evidence of her financial situation, and to prove that she has an international health insurance, among other requirements. If the traveler gets her visa approved and is able to travel to Barcelona, once there, if a situation arose in which she required consular assistance, the nearest Tajik embassy for her would be the one in Paris, France. As for her cultural capital in terms of language, she would speak Tajik –a variation of Persian– and perhaps Russian; and although she would maybe speak English, her language skills might be more limited even in touristic or international venues than they would be for a native English speaker. Finally, when it comes to economic capital, her funds for the trip in Tajik Somoni would probably make
15 Barcelona seem a much more expensive city than it would seem for someone carrying money in one of the top currencies of the world.
Even if within her country the second trip planner is a privileged citizen with the financial possibilities of acquiring a Schengen visa for tourism and undertaking a trip to a Western European country, in a broader scenario her citizenship is a very limited source of capital in comparison to memberships offered by other countries. The accumulation of capital with which this person will travel seems comparatively lower and thus her position in the social world as a tourist in Barcelona would be evidently less privileged than that of a U.S. or EU citizen. Capital through citizenship acts here as a positioning element and shows that what Choules (2006) calls ‘globally privileged citizenships’ carry real benefits within them, both material and intangible, which as the example illustrated may fit in the diverse Bourdieuian forms of social, cultural and economic capital.
2.2.1. Citizenship as a membership beyond territory and identity
Possibly the primary aspect which links citizenship and capital is the fact that the former represents full and formal membership within a state, which is in turn a form of capital. The inherent counterpart to this feature is the existence of non-members or non-citizens, i.e. individuals who lack this citizenship capital. Brubaker (1992) argues that every modern state is responsible for publically defining their citizenry or members, while simultaneously labelling all the rest as aliens (p. 21). Through this practice, the states divide the world’s population “into a set of bounded and mutually exclusive citizenries” (p. 22), in which formal citizenship is the official international filing system that allocates individuals to states (p. 31).
16 Therefore, as Castles (2005) later confirms, “inclusion of some people as full citizens is based on the partial or full exclusion of many others” (p. 205). Only citizens can exercise their power freely within their state, and even sometimes from abroad: citizenship enables them to, for example, enter and leave the country freely, it eliminates the chances of their deportation, it allows them to vote in most elections, to work and live in the country’s territory, and to request and receive consular protection abroad. Thus, membership within a group –in this case a state– is an institutionalized form of capital that can provide its members “with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a ‘credential’ which entitles them to credit, in the various senses of the word” (Bourdieu 1986).
Meanwhile, most of the time non-citizens have limited –or even non-existent– possibilities in these terms: they have little or null access to political, spatial, or moral participation within the state of which they are not formal members. Some of the policies and practices that put into effect this territorial closure of the state towards non-citizens are border controls and formal identification requirements, making use of mechanisms such as passports, birth certificates, residence permits and identity cards, every time more advanced and computerized for a more efficient scrutiny and control.
Nonetheless, as one can see, most notions of citizenship as a membership to a state are usually presented in relation to the country’s territory, i.e., referring to the residents and potential residents of a particular physical area. Indeed, the membership conferred by citizenship, Brubaker (1992) has shown, is strongly linked to a territorial dimension, because the territorial aspect of the state is the representation of its spatial powers and area of control, and territory plays an essential role in regulating inclusion and exclusion. But in spite of the dominant importance given to the territorial dimension of states in citizenship scholarship,
17 Brubaker expands the discussion maintaining that modern states are not only territorial organizations of members but also personal associations:
“Citizenship is not a mere reflex of residence; it is an enduring personal status that is not generated by passing or extended residence alone and does not lapse with temporary or prolonged absence. In this respect the modern state is not simply a territorial organization but a membership organization, an association of citizens.” (Brubaker 1992, p. 21)
He suggests that an exclusively territorial approach to the study of states and citizenship would be incomplete, and although modern states are indeed territorial organizations, citizenship goes beyond the boundaries of the territory of residence – for instance, this enduring membership is not revoked by prolonged absence. Territory and membership are closely related; however, modern states are not only physical areas but also associations of individuals or ‘insiders’ who –even from outside of the territory– can remain members of the state and keep the possibilities of such membership at hand.
The transformations of the institution of citizenship in the last decades show indeed a particular disassociation with its traditionally territorial dimension. For instance, there has been an increasing proliferation in the tolerance of multiple citizenship in the last decades, demonstrating that for several states which have incorporated this possibility in their citizenship law, “the boundaries of human communities [can] transcend territorial ones” (Bauböck 2010, p. 853). Bauböck argues that the package of rights that citizenship represents is not linked exclusively to residence in the state in which one is member, but can also be linked to less tangible factors such as personal and communal identities. To this we can add that citizenship can also represent a tool for improving one’s life chances without necessarily
18 symbolizing a particular identity for the individual who holds it. Although sometimes a synonym of territory, the state is often also a member group to which one belongs and to which rights and benefits one is often entitled independently of its spatial and identity-related dimensions.
This discussion lets us start thinking about the reconfiguring of the meanings of citizenship in the context of PTBs, in which U.S. born children and citizens grow up in Mexico, learn to speak Spanish, study Mexican history and culture, but hold a U.S. birth certificate and passport as a result of a plan their parents carried through, and therefore have access to a wealthy state’s membership and its advantages.
2.2.2. Citizenship as a tool for improving social positions
Brubaker’s 1992 book left a research task for citizenship and migration scholars: the study of the importance of formal citizenship in the legal shaping of life chances within the immigrant communities. Although authors such as Gálvez (2013) have undertaken this duty, there is one aspect missing: citizenship has barely been studied as a tool for social improvement for non-migrants and foreign residents. Although citizenship is well studied as a form of acquiring capital within a hosting state, it has only been addressed in the context of immigrants who reside in the particular territory and who seek to be admitted as members in order to have access to greater rights, safety, and means of participation. It has also been addressed from the national identity perspective. But citizenship has not been studied outside of its territorial dimensions as a purely pragmatic transaction for socioeconomic improvement.
19 Brubaker speaks of the territorialization” of citizenship, and Joppke writes about its “de-nationalization”, but what is left when the institution of citizenship is both detached from a territory and from a national identity? This is an interesting gap in the literature relating citizenship and transnational phenomena, which has not yet studied how citizenship can break both with its territorial aspect and its national identity aspect, representing only a pragmatic form of belonging and access. When obtained through practices such as PTBs, citizenship may essentially be seen as a tool for the future, an investment strategy, an insurance policy to facilitate success, or a possible mechanism of risk avoidance.
Citizenship is valuable in alternative ways for people who are not residing in the country of membership, either at the moment or who have never resided there. In the case of PTBs, citizenship for the newborn is most likely desired for different purposes than immediate migration or residency, and therefore its value and the capital attached to it may transform the notions and outcomes of citizenship in unexpected ways that are worthy of further study.
2.3. Planned transnational births and its relation with citizenship and capital
Given the geographical proximity, as well as other influential factors such as the political and economic ties that have historically connected Mexico and the U.S. creating strong interdependences between them5, a relatively common strategy of PTBs takes place from the
5 Fernández-Kelly and Massey (2007) carry out a neat analysis of diverse political, economical and
geographical ties which have linked Mexico and the United States through history. In 1848 an armed conflict between the two countries caused that almost half of the Mexican territory became part of the United States, resulting in an entire population of Mexicans who “suddenly changed national status while maintaining kinship and friendship bonds in their country of origin" (p. 106). Around seven decades later, in the 1920s private and government-assisted initiatives began to recruit Mexican workers seeking a low-cost labor force for agriculture, encouraging massive levels of immigration. Soon after that, when the U.S. entered the Second World War, the Bracero agreement was signed in 1942, aiming to relief the labor shortages in agriculture by
20 southern to the northern country, the Mexican northern border being the most significant area from where this practice originates. The main purpose of this practice is generally for the children to acquire U.S. citizenship by birth, although they will most likely grow up in Mexico after being born abroad. Most of the cases of PTBs take place when the Mexican mother or parents are in possession of a valid tourist visa (the most common type of nonimmigrant visa) or another type of permit that allows them to enter the U.S. lawfully to give birth, most frequently with a limited length of stay.
The range of possibilities which might influence a Mexican parent’s decision to give birth to their child in the U.S. can naturally be focused on both short-term advantages and in long-term potential benefits for the offspring. An example of a short-long-term incentive for a PTB could be the higher quality of medical services in the bordering towns or cities on the U.S. side in comparison to their Mexican counterparts. Nevertheless, as it will be shown later, this
arranging the temporary entry of Mexican male workers who were continuously circulating in and out of the country. The program extended far more than originally planned and was only terminated in 1964. By this time (after 22 years), according to the authors, more than 4.5 million workers from Mexico had participated in the program as braceros (p. 106).
After the bracero era immigration policy in the U.S. became more complex, and the avenues for legal migration became highly restrictive, applying a numerical quota to Mexican immigration and forcing Mexicans to compete for scarce visas with citizens from the rest of the world. What these fundamental changes caused was a shift “from a de jure guest worker program based on the circulation of braceros to a de
facto guest worker program based on the circulation of undocumented labor” of Mexicans (p. 107). At the end
of the century, when the North American Trade Agreement was signed in 1994, the focus remained in goods and not in people, ignoring international labor mobility (p. 105).
The authors claim that this historical evolution of the relations between both countries has been contradictory and politically inefficient, with the border’s militarization failing to reduce the inflow of undocumented migrants and instead increasing the costs and risks of crossing. As a consequence of this, immigrants have tended to prefer to stay within the U.S. to avoid the risks of unathorized circular migration, producing a significant increase in the permanent immigrant population in the country who eventually seek to bring their families as well (p. 111).
Today, according to the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau, Mexicans are the largest foreign-born group in the U.S., accounting for 11.7 million and 29% of all the foreign-born population in the country. This figure also means that nowadays the number of Mexicans living in the U.S. are equivalent to more than 10% of the current population of Mexico.
21 study confirmed the already anticipated idea that the long-term advantages of planning a transnational birth are the most important drivers of this practice.
In a social world in which resources are contested, and an international landscape of fundamentally unequal countries, citizenship of a wealthy state translates into a fundamental resource to improve one’s position in the social scene, both at the local and the global levels. Securing citizenship of a developed country for one’s offspring is securing a source of capital, as it may decrease risks and simultaneously increase security in their lives, through access to better education, better jobs and wages, and better social benefits. Thus, this research proposes that, for parents who decide to practice a PTB to obtain a ‘first-world’ citizenship for their children, this asset represents a sort of insurance policy for the future and a shortcut to the possibility of a better life for their offspring.
2.4. Who can afford to plan a transnational birth?
Tourist visas are the most common type of nonimmigrant visas issued by the U.S., and interestingly, every year Mexicans show a significantly high and constant flow of nonimmigrant6 entries in the U.S. With more than 40 official crossing points along the more than 3,000 kilometers that both countries share, the Mexico-U.S. border has large levels of transit between a heterogeneous group of twinning cities such as Tijuana and San Diego,
6 The term “nonimmigrant entry” or “nonimmigrant visitor” refers mainly to foreign nationals entering the
U.S. for temporary visits for pleasure or business, i.e. tourists and business travelers. It may also include temporary visitors for study or work who stay less than 6 months in the U.S.
22 Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Reynosa and McAllen, Matamoros and Brownsville, among several others.
In 2011, Mexico represented 32% of all nonimmigrant entries to the U.S., whereas the following country in the list –Great Britain–, consisted of only 8.6% of the nonimmigrant visitors7. More than three quarters of all these temporary admissions occurred through tourist or pleasure visas (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics 2012). Furthermore, Mexican nationals obtain the highest number of U.S. nonimmigrant visas every year. In 2012, there were 1.6 million issuances for Mexican nationals, which represented 19% of all issued visas of this kind during that year. Also, the refusal rate of U.S. nonimmigrant visas tends to be relatively low for Mexico, with only 12.1% in 2013, in comparison to other countries such as Afghanistan, Cuba, or Ghana, with refusal rates that surpassed 60% of the applications in that same year (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics 2012).
Interestingly, geography seems to play an important role in the process as well. Of all the nonimmigrant visas issued in 2012 to all nationalities, the Embassy’s post in Mexico City issued 4.2% of them, while the post in Monterrey, a much smaller Mexican city in comparison –but a lot closer to the border–, issued 4.5% of all these type of visas (U.S. Department of State 2012). Remarkably, the northeastern city issued a slightly higher number than the capital city, whose greater area consists of more than 21 million people, in contrast with the 4 million who live in the metropolitan area of Monterrey. These numbers may
7 The figures of nonimmigrant admissions refer to number of events (amount of entries into the U.S.) rather
23 suggest that people living closer to the border tend to show a higher interest in requesting a tourist visa, since crossing for temporary reasons represents a shorter, easier, cheaper, and more frequent option to them.
Nevertheless, in spite of these figures which may make us think that many Mexicans have access to U.S. tourist or pleasure visas, it is well known that within the Mexican population holding a U.S. visa represents a significant degree of privilege. Although Mexico and particularly its northern area hold an advantaged position in terms of nonimmigrant visa issuances and accordingly visitor admissions to the U.S. in comparison to other countries, by simply looking at the extensive history of undocumented migration of Mexican nationals to the U.S. it can be pointed out that obtaining a U.S. visa, as a tourist or as a temporary business traveler, is a difficult mission for most part of Mexicans. Immigrant visas and temporary working visas are scarce8, and nonimmigrant visas for tourism and short business stays are destined for a specific and advantaged segment of the Mexican population who can fulfill the eligibility requirements.
2.4.1. The ‘traditional’ migrant profile
The ‘traditional’ profile of a Mexican migrant in the U.S., –i.e. a non-affluent, non-highly educated migrant seeking to cross the border for working purposes looking to improve his or her life and possibly that of their families as well–, the risks and costs of crossing towards
8 Fernández-Kelly and Massey (2007) note that, in spite of the intimate linkages that both countries share, the
U.S. (only) assign(s) to Mexico the same limit of immigrant visas that is applied to every other country which does not share a past of historical relations and interdependences, encouraging with these strict measures the establishment of alternative unauthorized routes of migration (p. 115).
24 the northern state are in constant growth. Without many possibilities of accessing legal documents for living and working temporarily or permanently in the U.S., and while the U.S. continues to reinforce a unilateral militarization of its southern border, the undocumented flows of determined emigrants have relocated towards the most dangerous points of the border, in which the chances of being caught while crossing are lower, but where the chances of dying during the process are much higher (Fernández-Kelly & Massey 2007, p. 111). In other words, the constant efforts of the U.S. to reinforce their border controls are impacting mainly this ‘traditional’ migrant profile, while the ‘lucky’ or advantaged sector of the population which is able to request and obtain a nonimmigrant visa can access the country easily. The wall separating both countries seems to only represent a genuine barrier for all those who do not possess enough resources to challenge its power. For others with a certain degree of resources, through their social and economic capital, the border can be crossed as a tourist, and a shortcut to citizenship for their offspring becomes feasible for the first group, while it still represents part of a larger struggle for immigrants in more vulnerable situations. The sector of society in the most advantaged side, the population who is considered to have a ‘tourist profile’, would usually not tend to show a strong interest in permanent migration or in moving for temporary labor purposes, since their lives in Mexico are already relatively comfortable and affluent, making the U.S. less attractive as a temporary or permanent destination. The following subsection describes some of the most common features of this sector of the Mexican population, describing how their different forms of capital and privilege make them eligible for a tourist visa.
25 2.4.2. The tourist visa profile
Tourist visas are, therefore, one of the key parts of the PTB process, but they are not available for everyone: the planning of this enterprise is restricted to those who possess –and can prove to possess– different forms of economic, cultural, and social capital that make them eligible for a nonimmigrant visa.
To request a nonimmigrant visa for tourism or pleasure and a border crossing card, also known as a laser visa9, a Mexican national must demonstrate that his or her intentions of visiting the U.S. are temporary, by certifying that they have enough financial funds to pay for the trip and stay in the U.S., and providing evidence that they hold a convincing amount of social and economic ties in Mexico to guarantee that they have strong reasons to –and will– return to the country of origin after a temporary stay in the U.S. As proof of social, cultural and economic ties, Mexicans are encouraged to bring to their visa appointment documents such as bank statements, tax documents, university diplomas, and proofs of current studies or employment (Embassy of the United States in Mexico 2014). The current application fee is 160 USD, which is non refundable in cases of denial. Once issued, the multi-entry document is valid for 10 years.
Evidently, these conditions are not favorable for a great part of Mexicans. It is indeed a complex process that involves several requirements, which only people in relatively
9 Although the characteristics of U.S. tourist visas have been modified during recent decades, under the
current U.S. visas system, the visas B-1 and B-2 are nonimmigrant visas, the first one for short business purposes and the second one for tourism and pleasure. In the case of Mexican nationals, for ease of travel, both types of visas are combined and issued together in a document that serves as a border crossing card, also known as “laser visa” (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, 2014). View annex 5 for more information on the characteristics of this document and an example of a border crossing card.
26 privileged positions are able to fulfill. Therefore, as experts such as Riosmena and Massey (2012) have shown, most of the Mexico-U.S. migration occurs without the necessary documents for crossing, and rarely by overstaying a temporary tourist visa (p. 21); most frequently, potential migrants do not even attempt to initiate an application, since the requirements for soliciting this document are most of the times inaccessible to them.
The individuals who may more likely have a tourist visa authorized will thus be those with a demonstrable source of income assessed as stable and sufficient to afford trips to the U.S. by the consular officer in charge of the approval. The individual will also usually be someone with a higher education degree, or who is currently pursuing studies if it is the case of a younger applicant. In a developing country like Mexico, the population who can meet these requirements is pretty narrow: besides the fact that more than 52% of Mexicans live in or under the national poverty line (World Bank 2012), around 63% of the Mexican population aged between 25 and 64 has never completed upper secondary education and thus lack a high-school degree, while only 18% of the population in this same age range have attained tertiary or higher education (OECD 2014a; OECD 2014b, p. 10). Hence, presenting a university diploma during a visa appointment is only an option for less than 2 out of every 10 Mexicans. Likewise, having access to formal employment –which can be another of the contributing factors in being granted a tourist visa– is also reserved for a limited proportion of Mexicans: according to reports of the International Labor Organization, more than 60% of the Mexican population is employed in the informal economy (ILO 2002, p. 33). Without employment in the formal sector, the applicants have little possibilities of presenting relevant documents as proof of a stable income and of labor ties in Mexico during their appointment
27 in one of the U.S. embassies or consulates, limiting decisively the chances of having their visa application authorized.
Mexicans with the ‘tourist profile’ will thus more likely be in the exclusive sectors of the population which form part of the 40% employed in the formal sector of the economy, those who number among the 18% with university diplomas, and those who have at hand the means to demonstrate that they are part of a relatively affluent sector of the population.
It is important to note that the previous arguments do not necessarily mean that people who hold a tourist visa are always the most privileged Mexicans, or that their lives and financial situations are free of struggle. Many of them are able to demonstrate enough ties to prove their intent to return to Mexico without this necessarily implying that their financial resources provide enough income for the current needs of themselves and their families; nevertheless, what this subsection demonstrates is the relative position of advantage that a person with access to a tourist visa may have in comparison with the Mexican population as a whole. Furthermore, it is as a result of the combination of privilege and its relativity that the idea of a PTB may emerge: even though in all of the studied cases of this sample the families had some sort of visa and certain financial comfort while living in Mexico, they foresaw the possibility of a second citizenship for their children as a door to increase their chances of having a more favorable life in respect to what they could have within the Mexican context.
28 3. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY: METHODS
While studying PTBs, this research attempts to combine an analysis of, firstly, the structural and institutional notions such as citizenship and capital and, secondly, other more subjective factors involved in this practice, such as the perceptions and actions of the agents involved. For the understanding of the first ones, a literature review and an investigation of the current migration and visa policies were performed, while for the second ones a series of in-depth interviews with members of families who practiced PTBs were held.
Following the Bourdieuian style of striving to link and integrate objectivity and subjectivity throughout the study, the structures of states and citizenship are analyzed together with the ideas and perceptions of the parents who plan transnational births and the children who experience the outcomes: how they see themselves, their country, their future, and what they see or saw as valuable in U.S. citizenship.
Although the structural and objective aspects play a strongly determinant role in this practice in the sense that they shape the individuals’ perception of U.S. citizenship as a valuable and viable option, the mental configurations that result from the structural circumstances must also be looked at. The subjective factors of the practice of PTBs –i.e., what the parents see in U.S. citizenship, what motivates them to seek that for their children, what they foresee for their children’s future– represent, as Wacquant explains it, “the individual and collective struggles through which agents seek to conserve or transform these objective structures” (Wacquant 2007, p. 267). Both sides are worth studying, thus, as they constitute and transform each other mutually. For that reason this research looks at theories of citizenship
29 and at its relationship with capital, but taking into strong consideration the function of the agents who plan transnational births and who are born in the context of one: they play an important role both reflecting the structure but also actively challenging and redefining the structures of citizenship and capital.
3.1. About the sample10
After having done previous research and a literature review of citizenship and capital focusing on transnational practices and movement, I carried out fieldwork during a one month stay in the city of Monterrey, the largest conurbation in the northeast of Mexico. Monterrey is situated roughly 220 km away from the border with the U.S. state of Texas. During this fieldwork stage, I established contact with a total of 10 families in which the mother or the parents had planned a transnational birth for one or more of their children. In all of the cases, both a father and a mother were or had been present, or at least were somehow mentioned, together with other siblings in each family. Only 1 out of the 10 cases was a family consisting solely of an only child.
Since my parents practiced a PTB for me and my sister themselves, I have been aware throughout my life that some of my friends and acquaintances share a similar circumstance, and thus I began my research by speaking to them. They, in turn, referred me to other individuals they knew with this profile and thus I was able to expand the group of participants
10 A map of the 10 participant families can be found in the annex 1, where the sample and some of its main
30 through snowball sampling. Although I was lucky to gather a sample that included cases of PTBs from different areas of the long border line, I still do not intend to argue that this study can indistinctively be generalizable for the whole population who performs transnational births, but I am confident that it provides a first glance and exploration of the relations between PTBs, U.S. citizenship, and the diverse forms of capital involved in this practice. Within these 10 families, I pursued semi-structured interviews with 15 individuals (at least one of the members of the family, either a parent or a child, and in some cases I was able to interview both parties). In total, I carried out 8 interviews with U.S. born children, 6 females and 2 males11, and 7 interviews with parents, 3 fathers and 4 mothers who practiced a PTB. Most of the interviews took place in person, but some of them, due to geographical differences, were held via Skype. After explaining the purposes of the conversation and asking the participants for their consent12, I recorded the audio of all of the interviews, to later transcribe it and analyze it.
To offer a geographical idea of the sample’s cases (see image 1), the 10 analyzed births took place in Texas (6), California (2), Arizona (1), and Nuevo León, Mexico (1)13. The places in
11 Although I originally had access to 12 families in total (17 interviews to either parents or children), I had to
discard 2 interviews that I had done to male children, since during the interview it became evident that they were not cases of PTBs. One of them was not a citizen but a resident thanks to his father’s marriage to a green card holder, while the other one was born in the U.S. when his father was working in Chicago. Although originally in my sample of children I had 6 females and 4 males, after discarding these two interviews I ended up with 6 females and only 2 males. Being conscious of the lack of gender balance in the sample, I made an effort to interpret the interviews with a gender perspective. I did not find strong gendered differences in the answers of the female and male children, and their perceptions of U.S. citizenship and plans related to it seemed to share a similar nature.
12 The disclosure and consent form, as well as the interview guides can be found in the annexes 2, 3 and 4. 13 The child born in Mexico was registered as born in Texas through a third party who offered the service of
arranging a birth certificate with the child’s information, which entitled him to full U.S. citizenship by birth. In this particular case one may speak of a ‘planned transnational birth certificate’ instead of a mere PTB. Nevertheless, the motivations related to citizenship for the offspring are shared in both cases.
31 Mexico where the parents lived at the moment of planning the transnational births were Baja California (1), Sonora (2), Nuevo León (4) and Tamaulipas (3), all northern and bordering states.
Image 1. Towns and cities were PTBs happened (U.S.) and places of residence of the parents (Mexico) at that moment.
All the parents in my sample –with exception of the particular case which was born in Mexico– practiced the PTB with temporary tourist visas or green cards. None crossed the border irregularly and all the crossings happened by land. As mentioned above, all of them either live or were living back then in a place close to the border, and the birth happened close on the other side as well. Several mentioned having relatives or friends living in the border zone in the U.S. side who hosted and supported them during the process. Likewise, several mentioned having previous experiences within the U.S., such as previous work, studies, or other migratory experiences which facilitated the process.
Finally, in most of the interviewed cases not all of the children of the family were born in the U.S. Of all siblings involved in my sample, 17 were also U.S. citizens but 10 had been born in Mexico. Some of the reasons given for this were that having other children in ages that
32 required close attention complicated the process for a new transnational birth; that the parents had not yet a contact in the U.S., whom they would only meet later; or that the couple’s financial situation at the moment of the birth of one of their children was not as prosperous as during the birth of the other or others.
All the parents interviewed were performing high-skilled jobs, in occupations such as administrator, musician, bank manager, chemist, dentist, bilingual teacher, and doctor. One of the mothers was not currently occupied, but held higher education credentials. Interestingly, more than one third of the parents of my sample (interviewed or not) are either green card holders or U.S. citizens (7 out of 20), although only 2 of them currently live in the U.S. while 5 remain in Mexico. Two were born in Mexico but had U.S. citizenship thanks to their parents, and they both currently live in the U.S., the other five had green cards thanks to their daughters (3), their ex-spouse (1), or their father (1), and were all currently residing in Mexico. From all the children in the sample, 2 of them currently live and work in the US, 1 is planning to move there soon due to a job offer, and all the remaining ones live in Mexico. The average age of the U.S. born children interviewed was 27 years old, and I only spoke to participants that were at least 18 years old. All except one of them were highly educated, with at least a college degree. The remaining one came from a family with highly-educated parents, but decided to leave his bachelor unfinished in order to give a different focus to his career.
6 out of the 8 participants had both U.S. and Mexican citizenship, while one of them was in process of acquiring her Mexican citizenship and one was only a U.S. citizen. Some of the ones who have dual citizenship do not have a matching identity in both citizenships, which implies that they were registered as two different persons in the U.S. and in Mexico. In these
33 cases, besides their U.S. birth certificate, the children also hold a Mexican birth certificate that declares they were born in Mexico, although it is not the case.
Since all the interviews were carried out in Spanish, I made an effort to preserve the participants’ ideas as accurate as possible while translating them into English.
Throughout the text, when any of the participants are directly quoted or referenced, their real names have been modified in order to protect their identity.
3.2. Reflexivity and ethical considerations
Being myself a child of a Mexican couple who practiced a PTB was helpful for me to build a sample of people who, as me, also grew up close to the border and shared my situation. Thus, my sampling method was initially through people I know and share characteristics with. Nevertheless, I tried to diversify the participants by finding individuals who were not from the same city I come from, or who were not directly from the same social circles I form part of. I know this was only possible in a limited scale and that my sample’s size and characteristics do not necessarily represent a complete picture of the practice of PTBs, but that of the particular practice that occurs among people with whom I share a few social characteristics. Nonetheless, I am sure that the group of participants I was able to gather represents an interesting first exploration of the regional practice of PTBs in the North of Mexico.
Similarly, I also consider that as much as my personal experience could be helpful for approaching the topic with empathy, easier access and confidence, it also meant a strong epistemological concern for the conduction of my research, which I attempted to overcome
34 through a continuous analysis of my positionality. I made use of different recommendations, such as trying to approach the participants and the topic with questions and probes that allowed them to speak through their own experiences and not through my own, nor through my personal perception of their experiences.
Other strong concern I sought to overcome was the one related to the treatment of the topic of PTBs which, in general, tends to be controversial within the U.S. and other advanced countries14. In northern Mexico, the tendency seems to be to view it as a ‘smart’ or ‘visionary’ move from the parents, whereas many voices from the U.S. or other countries such as Canada might speak of it as an ‘exploited loophole’ or an ‘abusive act’. A potential harm could have happened if through this research, by remarking that PTBs are a topic of interest for sociology and migration studies, the participants became more aware of the practice itself and looked further into the topic finding out that PTBs or ‘birth tourism’ are a controversial action, potentially occasioning them to feel like the object of the harsh criticism that can be found in the media. This could change the way they perceive or feel about their past actions, and there was also the possibility that they could develop a defensive way of interacting with me if they considered PTBs to be something they could be judged for.
To counterbalance these potential harms, I strived to use terms and concepts along the disclosure, consent form and interviews in which PTBs and its related practices were not expressed in a negative way or with a pejorative connotation, but a neutral, exploratory one. I firstly started from avoiding the use of mediatized terms such as ‘birth tourism’, thus
14 See annex 6 for a compilation of phrases extracted from online newspaper articles addressing the topic of
‘birth tourism’. The two tables presented in the annex are organized considering each article’s approach towards the relation between ‘birth tourism’ and what some debates call ‘anchor babies’.
