The Incorrigible Subject: Mobilizing a Critical Geography of (Latin) America through the Autonomy of Migration

This article suggests the indispensable purchase of sustaining a critique of the conventional geography of Latin America. Any critical approach to (Latin) American geography must be organized in relation to the genealogy of concepts, discourses, and practices implicated in the historical and ongoing sociopolitical production of the space of (“Latin”) “America.” This article\u27s specific intervention toward a critical geography of Latin America adopts the vantage point of migration as a standpoint of critique, and thus posits a critical geographical perspective on Latin/America from the point of view of the experiences of Latino/a migrants in the United States. Situating its inquiry in relation to the pivotal role of anti-Mexican/anti-Latino racism in the political rhetoric of Donald Trump, this paper is ultimately interested in the relationship of Latin American and Latina/o Studies to the autonomy of migration, the subversion of the U.S.-Mexico border, and the politics of incorrigibility articulated through migrants\u27 struggles within the United States. This article also seeks thereby to revisit the perennially (but productively) problematic relationship between what comes to be known as “Latin American Studies” and the field of scholarly inquiry called “Latino Studies.