Informal transborder trade between México and Guatemala from permissive border perspective

This paper analyzes processes of interaction, tension, conflict and economic interests in one of the major border areas between Mexico and Guatemala. Informal transborder trade involves several actors who have been building these processes pursuant to agency initiatives. Among these actors, Guatemalan transborder traders who come to buy goods from their Mexican counterparts (retail and wholesale shop owners) play a prominent role, as do the camareros who transport the traders and their merchandise across the Suchiate River on rafts and other actors such as moneychangers and rickshaw drivers who participate in economic and social interaction in the region. From a conceptual perspective, supported by the dialectical relationship between the notions of a border the behavior of transborder actors, it is concluded that in the study area, an informal border-trade integration process has developed and its actors transcend the border, rendering that border permissive.