City & Society
Bo o k Re vie w
The Land of Open Graves: Living
and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Jason
De Léon, Oakland, CA: University of
California Press, 2015, 384 pp.
Wendy Vogt
Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis
Jason De León’s The Land of Open Graves
is a groundbreaking and beautifully
written account of the violent logics of
life and death in the US-Mexico
borderlands. Through an innovative mix
of methodological approaches—
ethnography, archaeology, forensic
science, and linguistics—De León
reveals the ways US border policies
strategically and intentionally produce
migrant death. In doing so, he paves the
way for new directions in a holistic
anthropology that can be “deployed in
politically hostile terrain” (p. 14).
The core of the book revolves
around De León’s sharp and searing
indictment of the United States’
Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD)
border strategy. According to De León,
PTD is a “killing machine that
simultaneously uses and hides behind
the viciousness of the Sonoran Desert”
(p. 3). To develop this argument, he
draws inspiration from Callon and Law’s
theory of the hybrid collectif to illuminate
the ways both human and nonhuman
DOI: 10.1111/ciso.12122
actants contribute to the historical and
ongoing production of suffering and
death in the desert. De León’s focus on
PTD offers a concrete framework for a
critique that might otherwise be lost if
he relied solely on the more abstract
concept of structural violence.
Early in the book De León expresses
his concerns and at times discomfort
with participant observation as a
methodology for understanding the
border crossing experience; he
purposefully does not make the
unauthorized crossing himself. Even so,
De León is not a detached observer;
rather, through his actions and presence
he becomes deeply intertwined with the
lives and stories of the people he
encounters. This is perhaps most clear
through his friendships and emotional
connections to his two main
interlocutors, Memo and Lucho, and
through his efforts to track down and
connect with the family of Maricela, a
woman whose body he discovered in the
desert.
Through original and incisive
writing, De León seeks to privilege the
voices and experiences of migrants and
their family members. In Chapter Two
he presents a captivating
“semifictionalized ethnographic”
account of the border crossing drawn
from a composite of interviews. Chapter
Four begins in the midst of a humorous
Book Review
storytelling session—a chingadera—with
Memo and Lucho, as an example of the
ways migrants “discursively resist” US
state power (p. 92). In Chapter Nine, the
story of Christian, Maricela’s brother-in-
law who lives in New York City, is
relayed almost exclusively through
interview transcriptions with little
interruption or analysis by De León so
as to rectify the paucity of such first
person accounts.
Yet, despite his interest and skill in
presenting detailed and nuanced
portraits of real people, De León argues
that Memo and Lucho are “not unique
examples of migrants,” but rather “fairly
typical examples of undocumented
border crossers” (p. 106). His goal is to
hit home to the reader the reality that
there are people “living and dying in the
desert at this very moment” (p. 60).
While this is an absolutely crucial point,
and one that is easy for those removed
from this context to forget or ignore, I
wonder if the goal of ethnography is to
create typologies, in this case of typical
border crossers or border crossing
experiences. Are the stories of those
who do not fit the molds or typologies
of “typical subjects” any less important
or crucial to examine? Indeed, much of
the power of ethnography lies in the
ways it brings insight into the
complexities and contradictions that
emerge from the diversity of human
experience.
Ultimately, I do think this is what De
León accomplishes in this book,
particularly in the final chapters as he
traces the rippling effects of loss on the
families of the missing and the dead. In
Chapters Ten and Eleven, De León
travels to Cuenca, Ecuador where he
visits with the family of Maricela and
José, another family member who went
missing while crossing the desert. He
describes in vivid and heartbreaking
detail the particular forms of grief and
uncertainty these families go through. By
demonstrating the ways migrant
journeys continue on even after death,
these chapters bring new insights and
meanings to scholarly understandings of
transnationalism and transnational
families.
Much of De León’s fieldwork is
conducted inside and around a shelter in
Mexico during some of the most violent
years of the current drug war. While
reading the text I found myself
wondering how this broader context
impacted local power dynamics. While
De León makes brief reference to drug
cartels and Mexico’s drug war, a more
substantial analysis of the ways the
Mexican state and transnational
“security” regimes are implicated in the
migrant crossing experience would bring
more complexity and depth to his
argument on the hybrid collectif.
Finally, the book is provocative as it
raises ethical questions around the ways
anthropologists study and disseminate
research on violence and death. De León
includes honest and critical reflections
on the ethics of depicting violence
through both words and images,
including discussions of his decision to
publish a photograph of Maricela as he
found her in the desert and conduct
forensic experiments on the
decomposing bodies of dead pigs. With
that said, De León does not refrain from
thick descriptions of violence; in his
City & Society

semifictionalized ethnographic account,

for example, he describes in harrowing
detail a woman being sexually assaulted.
Some may argue that such depictions are
insensitive to people who have suffered
such abuses, particularly written from
the perspective of a male author.
Moreover, such words and images may
contribute to the spectacle of suffering
on the border, which we know to be
strategically used by politicians and the
media. On the other hand, the inclusion
of such images and depictions may be
seen as necessary in sparking political
action, or at least more compassionate
understandings of the realities of life and
death on the border.
In sum, The Land of Open Graves is
a compelling and politically important
book that pushes the boundaries of
contemporary anthropological theory,
methods and writing. I applaud Jason
De León’s work and highly recommend
this book to students, scholars, and
anyone else concerned with human
rights on the US-Mexico border and
beyond.

Keywords: undocumented migration, US-

Mexico border, violence, Prevention
Through Deterrence