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Migraciones Internacionales e-ISSN: 2594-0279

Papers

Vol. 6 No. 21 (2011): July-December, 2011

Beyond Chapala and Cancún: Grappling with the Impact of American Migration to Mexico

DOI
https://doi.org/10.17428/rmi.v6i21.758
Published
2017-04-03

Abstract

Over the past two decades, a twist in the migratory relationship between Mexico and the United States has begun to attract the attention of policy makers and scholars: a growing stream of people moving permanently or semi-permanently from the United States to Mexico. Th e general understanding of this phenomenon until recently has been that these migrants are wealthy retirees moving to isolated resort-type complexes in beach cities. However, the present paper demonstrates that the migration is actually heterogeneous in terms of its people, places and impacts.Thus, we argue that study of the phenomenon must be expanded to include not only a better understanding of the migrants themselves, but also the impacts on the receiving localities. To this end, we propose a framework for a research agenda, creating a typology of receiving places and the settlements within these places.Más allá de Chapala y Cancún: Lidiando con el impacto de la migración estadounidense en MéxicoResumenA lo largo de las dos últimas décadas, un viraje en la relación migratoria entre México y Estados Unidos ha comenzado a captar el interés de políticos e investigadores: se trata del flujo en el aumento de estadounidenses que se trasladan a vivir a México de manera temporal o permanente. Hasta hace poco, la interpretación general de este fenómeno era que se trataba de migrantes jubilados y solventes que se dirigían a centros turísticos exclusivos en diversas ciudades costeras. Este trabajo pone de manifiesto que esta migración es en extremo heterogénea en cuanto a las personas, los destinos y sus efectos.Además argumenta que el análisis de este fenómeno debería enfocarse no sólo en los migrantes sino también en el impacto del flujo migratorio sobre las localidades receptoras. Con este fin, se propone un esquema para una nueva línea de investigación con una tipología de las localidades receptoras y sus asentamientos. Esta tipología nos permite acceder a la literatura académica para la investigación de la migración de estadounidenses a México.

Cover image

Keywords

  • retirement migration
  • urban planning
  • tourism geographies
  • Mexico
  • United States

How to Cite

Schafran, A., & Monkkonen, P. (2017). Beyond Chapala and Cancún: Grappling with the Impact of American Migration to Mexico. Migraciones Internacionales, 6(21), 223–258. https://doi.org/10.17428/rmi.v6i21.758
Copyright Notice

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