Between the Lines: Border Research Ethics and Methods

Researchers, professors and students from the U.S. and Mexico will come together this Friday for a binational conference called Between the Lines: Border Research Ethics and Methods.

Courtesy of BREM

Speakers and panels will discuss issues in their border research, as well conflicts that arise in the border, like immigration enforcement. Different topics are presented in either Spanish or English. This event is hosted by (and sponsored by others, too) the the UA’s Center for Latin American Studies Border Research Ethics and Methodologies Project (BREM). BREM’s focus is methodological considerations. Part of their abstract about consideration says, “These are complicated when addressing the problems of ‘vulnerable’ populations constituted by poverty, immigration, clandestine activity, and border enforcement.”

I contacted one of the keynote speakers, Professor Kathleen Staudt from the University of Texas El Paso. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in political science. She calls this conference “pioneering” and will be speaking on the topic, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Border Research Collaboration”

Staudt will present a model she helped develop in her co-authored 2002 book, Fronteras no Más: Toward Social Justice at the U.S.-Mexico Border, which will be “followed with some new dynamics since then, especially related to higher education bureaucracies, community-based organizations, and research,” she said in an e-mail. She will also, like the title of her talk says, look at the ugly, bad (or what she refers to good enough) and good- of border research.

Along with Professor Staudt, the diverse, day-long conference, will bring together a range of people to collaborate on the often complicated subject of border studies- and conference goers will be able to catch the conversations!