"Living is for everyone": border crossings for community, environment, and health

Abstract

This article examine the transnational networking practices fo Teresa Leal, an environmental justice activist living and working on the U.S.-Mexico border. It shows, through the method of engaged ethnography, how she and other community activists respond to the effects of global economic restructuring policies such as NAFTA. Grounded in an ecological epistemology, Lead blends "local" and "scientific" knowledges about the deteriorating health, economic, and environmental conditions at the border and constructs a "global sense of place" that brings into focus the everyday realities of neoliberal globalization. The article documents a daylong "toxic tour" of the Ambos Nogales region and highlights the multiple border crossings (epistemic, geographic, political, cultural) undertaken by Leal, other activists, and the author, a visitor to the region, to narrate a history of community health and environmental action in a transnational context.