Unequal Neighbors: Tijuana and San Diego

Place Stigma, the idea that perceptions about a neighborhood can be used to disparage an area or people from it, is a concept whose affects are widespread. In this dynamic talk on their book, Unequal Neighbors¸ authors Kristen Hill Maher and David Carruthers examine the role that place stigma has in reinforcing real and imagined inequalities in San Diego and Tijuana. While San Diego is often represented as a place of economic vitality and safety, Tijuana is portrayed as a zone of poverty and crim. But neither of these assumptions represent the reality on the ground. Based on original empirical materials, this book looks at the ways the cities have been represented through media, everyday talk, economic relations, and local tourism discourses to show how these difference result in asymmetric borders between places.

This talk will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing on the Library's Facebook and Youtube Library's pages following the event. 

Registration is recommended but not required. Please register below for this event.

**All-in person events will be subject to County of San Diego Health Department guidelines**

Author Biographies

Kristen Hill Maher is Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University with interests in borders, migration, citizenship, geographies of inequality, and qualitative methods. Her research on these themes has been grounded in field studies in California, Tijuana, Chile, Thailand, and South Africa. Maher has been a Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego. She is the graduate advisor for SDSU's Political Science department and an inveterate mentor and collaborator with student researchers.

David Carruthers is Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University. Trained in political ecology with a specialization in Latin America, he is the author and editor of Environmental Justice in Latin America: Problems, Promise, and Practice (MIT Press) and has written on environmental justice, indigenous environmental struggles, agroecology, sustainability, the US-Mexico border, and San Diego-Tijuana. He is the undergraduate advisor for SDSU’s Sustainability and Latin American Studies programs.