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Mark de Socio and Christian Allen argue that economic and cultural integration along the U.S. -Mexico border is creating a "borderline nation" whose identity is distinct from the United States or from Mexico. Despite this integration, a history of territorial and ethnic antagonisms, acerbated by law enforcement efforts to stem illicit drug trafficking and undocumented migration, is creating social conflict. The result is an irredentism unique to MexAmerica.
BORDERLANDS often function as crucibles in which new and distinct national identities emerge. Contextual factors in forming frontier identities include increased economic and cultural integration, the presence of border patrols and law enforcement agencies, economic disparities across international borders, and illicit migrant and cornmodities traffic commonly associated with frontier lands. Neighboring states' core institutions are often weak in frontier zones, and emerging borderland identities are sometimes at odds with existing states, thus prompting state efforts to secure or resecure boundaries.2 The incongruence between culturally based transnational identity and state identity can
generate pressure for formal political separation.3
Complex border landscapes are produced through a unique set of cultural, economic, and political processes that occur over space. To understand these processes, consider a "localized, particularistic, and territorially focused notion of borders" applied to the U.S.-Mexico border region noted for its spaciousness, its juxtaposition of core and periphery, and its peculiar situational context of integration and fl-agmentation. The U.S.-Mexico border region exhibits a high degree of economic and social integration that is increasingly recognized as a borderline nation that is distinct from both the United States and Mexico (see the map). This article examines the intertwined economic and social processes that define the frontier landscape that author Joel Garreau illustratively calls "MexAmerica."
Low-intensity social conflict can be expected to accompany increased cross-border integration, particularly illicit drug trafficking, undocumented migration, and law enforcement responses.7 However, in the historical and situational context of U.S.-Mexico border dynamics, including a history of territorial and ethnic antagonisms, routine levels of social conflict are magnified. The United States' efforts to assert its sovereignty over the border periphery have heightened social conflict in the region. Consequently, irredentism is a potentially serious manifestation of intensifying social conflict.
Irredentism
The term "irredentism," from the Italian word "irredenta," meaning unredeemed, was coined to describe "the Italian movement to...