Counter-infrastructure in the US–Mexico borderlands: some archaeological perspectives

ABSTRACT Massive infrastructures of transportation and border security, designed to control flows of people and things, dominate the contemporary US–Mexico border. Together, these material projects work to inscribe the hegemonic processes of neoliberal capitalism and national sovereignty onto the physical landscape and into everyday life, giving them an aura of inevitability and permanence. Using archaeology, we challenge this narrative by exploring the counter-infrastructures developed by marginal communities in the US–Mexico borderlands – including miners, hippies, and migrants – to navigate and/or resist these projects. Specifically, we compare the shifting fields of in/visibility created by infrastructure and counter-infrastructure from the 1880s to the present to emphasize that bordering projects are neither inevitable nor permanent.