A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Irregular Transmigrants’ Journeys and Mental Mapping Methodology

Abstract

The development of border clusters and transit control regimes aiming to detain irregular migrants before they reach their destination countries is constructed upon a multidimensional geopolitical narrative driven by border security agreements. The Mexican Transit Control Regime illustrates that 16 years of trying to control migration in transit to the United States has not reduced it but has only succeeded in pushing migrants into dangerous routes and risky practices. Using mental maps as a technique to approach transmigrants’ voices, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of the ways irregular migrants in transit live and represent their journey.

Mental mapping and multinational migrations: A geographical imaginations approach

“…Recent approaches to mental mapping are far more complex and diversified and generally employed as qualitative participatory visual methods alongside conversational research methods (Campos‐Delgado, 2017; Jung, 2014). In contemporary examples of mental mapping, participants are rarely given an outline map to fill out nor provided with a list of places to rank.…”

“…The flexibility and openness of mental mapping (Reuchamps et al, 2014) make it highly suitable for exploring and analysing desires of migration. Rather than presupposing migratory patterns through a base map, mental maps allow for non‐linear movements (Campos‐Delgado, 2017). Participants are free to choose what is and is not included and to decide how to frame their maps, and therefore, mental mapping becomes a tool to elucidate understandings, perceptions, aspirations, and experiences of future, present, and past journeys.…”

“…Removing a base map also removes the expectation for prior geographical knowledge, allowing mapping to be an accessible cross‐cultural and cross‐linguistic methodological tool through giving participants the opportunity to represent their worlds and narratives in a medium that does not rely on secondary languages (Campos‐Delgado, 2017; Jung, 2014). Furthermore, with regard to visual participatory methods such as photo elicitation, mental mapping is much less intrusive, does not endanger the anonymity of the participant, and is publishable (Dowling, Lloyd, & Suchet‐Pearson, 2016).…”

“…Despite the accessibility of mental mapping, I encountered two major barriers when employing it as a method—practicalities of mapping in awkward spaces and some participants' levels of discomfort in engaging in a creative activity (see also Campos‐Delgado, 2017). These barriers meant 10 participants elected not to draw, and one dictated their imaginations for me to draw.…”

“…By enabling researchers to pay attention to the more ‘technical’ representative qualities including colour choice, sizes, (mis)locations, and inclusions and exclusions of places (Campos‐Delgado, 2017), mental maps augment traditional conversational methods. For instance, it is fruitful to consider how participants' representations challenge and reflect dominant geographical imaginations, as mental maps do not always reflect geopolitical maps and many include intended mislocations and exaggerations of places (Ben‐Ze'ev, 2015).…”