Living Is for Everyone: Border Crossings for Community, Environment, and Health
Author(s)
DiChiro, Giovanna
Abstract
Examines the transnational networking practices of Teresa Leal, an environmental justice activist living and working on the US-Mexico border. Through the method of engaged ethnography, the article shows how she and other community activists respond to the effects of global economic restructuring policies. Grounded in an ecological epistemology, Leal has combined “local” and “scientific” knowledge about the deteriorating health, economic, and environmental conditions at the border and constructed a “global sense of place” that brings into focus the everyday realities of neoliberal globalization. The article documents a daylong “toxic tour” of the Ambos Nogales region and highlights the multiple border crossings (epistemic, geographic, political, and cultural) undertaken by Leal, other activists, and the author to narrate a history of community health and environmental action in a transnational context.
