Border Studies Scholar to Speak at the University of Arkansas

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Latin American and Latino studies program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences will host Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, assistant professor and chair of the department of government at the University of Texas at Brownsville, as part of the Latin American and Latino Studies Lecture Series. She will present “Security, Migration, and the Economy in the Texas-Tamaulipas Border Region: The ‘Real’ Effects of Mexico’s Drug War on U.S. and Mexico Border Cities” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, in the Hembree Room (room 203) of Willard J. Walker Hall.

“Dr. Correa-Cabreara’s presentation analyzes the effects of Mexico’s drug war on security, migration and the economy on the eastern U.S.-Mexico border between the state of Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas,” said Juan Jose Bustamante, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American and Latino studies. “Both sides of the border are analyzed simultaneously in her work.”

The study shows that the extreme violence that Mexico is suffering has benefited major U.S. border cities while having a negative impact on Tamaulipas's border towns. The positive effects of Mexico’s violent spiral on U.S. border security and the U.S. border economy are evident, notwithstanding American public discourse and the reporting of U.S. media alleging the opposite.

Correa-Cabrera is developing a project on the explanations of violence and organized crime in the Texas-Tamaulipas border region supported by the Open Society Institute and the Social Science Research Council through the Latin American Security, Drugs and Democracy (LASDD) Postdoctoral Fellowship.

She earned a doctorate in political science from the New School for Social Research in New York City and a bachelor of arts in economics from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Correa-Cabrera was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship during her graduate studies.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Bustamante at jjbustam@uark.edu or 479-575-3810.