Global city and migrants subjects: The case of Mexican Laborers

Laura Echavarría Canto

Appointed to the Area of Political Discourse Analysis and Research in the Department of Educational Research at Cinvestav-IPN, Mexico.

E-mail: lechavar@cinvestav.mx, Phone: 55-41-59-38-93

Accepted 26 July, 2013

Abstract

This paper presents a research concerning the subjective configurations of migrants in a global city, it focuses in the constitution of migrant subjects beginning with their symbolic attribution to a collective and individual identity construed as inferior. I argue here that we can speak of a reiteration of the mnemic traces, defined by Freud as those unconscious inscriptions that refer to repetitive patterns that operate through transference as old perceptions passed on to new experiences.  Migrant subjects who live in New York City are the object of special analysis because, historically, the city was built on a foundation of international migrations and because, as a global city, it allows us to analyze migrant subjects in the context of globalization.

Keywords: Globalization, spaces of the globalization, subjective configurations, identity transformations