Abstract

FERNANDEZ DE LA REGUERA AHEDO, Alethia. The intertwining of institutional violence and sexual difference: a reflection on the human rights of women in immigration detention. Bol. Mex. Der. Comp. [online]. 2022, vol.55, n.163, e17497.  Epub June 15, 2023. ISSN 2448-4873.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iij.24484873e.2022.163.17497.

This article discusses the importance of studying migration policy through an ethnographic approach to the practices and relationships that arise in the daily interaction of migrants with bureaucracies, thus broadening the lens of observation to study certain power relations that arise from the State. In particular, I analyze the processes of immigration detention and reflect on the distance between the norm and its application by the local bureaucracy, which can particularly affect migrant women. In addition, legal sociology and critical feminism frame the gaze with which I analyze a specific form of discrimination or "soft" violence exercised by the State against migrant women. Finally, I take up the paradoxes raised by various theorists on valuing sexual differences both in legal frameworks and in public policies to achieve equality (Wendy Brown, 2002; Nancy Fraser, 1997; Joan W. Scott, 1992). A central point is the dilemma of difference (Luigi Ferrajoli, 2002; Martha Minow, 1985; 1990), which questions the dichotomous opposition between equality and difference. I reflect on ways to construct equality by recognizing the sexual difference, depending on the context and its effects on the exercise of human rights.

Keywords : human rights; migrant women; immigration detention; institutional violence.