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Contraband Corridor
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My first book, Contraband Corridor: Making a Living at the Mexico-Guatemala Border, was published by Stanford University Press in Denver 2017 (2018 copyright). The book explores how people who live along the Mexico-Guatemala border experience regional trade integration and security policies as they justify smuggling basic goods across the border in order to earn a living.
As the Mexico-Guatemala border has emerged in recent years as a geopolitical hotspot to contain illicit flows, the book seeks to understand the border from the perspective of its long-term inhabitants. It challenges simplistic assumptions regarding security, trade, and illegality by ethnographically detailing how residents along the Mexico-Guatemala border engage in, and justify, extra-legal practices in the context of heightened border security, restricted economic opportunities, and official regional trade integration policies that exclude regional inhabitants.
The research was funded by fieldwork grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation and a Craig M. Cogut Disseration writing fellowship from Brown University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The dissertation, upon which the book is based, won the New English Council of Latin American Studies (NECLAS) best disseration prize in 2010. The book has been reviewed in New York Journal of Books, Border Criminologies, Rutgers Criminal Law & Criminal Justice Books, American Anthropologist, Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR), Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe
The book's cover (author photo) was chosen for the cover of Stanford University Press' Anthropology 2018 book catalogue.
The Spanish translation, La Cadena: Vida y negocio en el límite entre México y Guatemala, was published by UNAM-CIMSUR in May 2021.
The Spanish version is free to download or order at:
https://www.cimsur.unam.mx/index.php/publicaciones/recientes?Publicacion=156
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DU Just Wages Project
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Awards: I received the 2022 Setha M. Low Award for Engaged Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association for the DU Just Wages Project and the 2023 Kate Browne Creativity in Research Award from the Society for Economic Anthropology. The book also received the 2023 Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize.
You can now purchase my new book: Laboring for Justice: The Fights Against Wage Theft in an American City. Stanford University Press March 2023--including one chapter co-authored by former students and activists. Order at: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=32824 Discount code Galemba20
The DU Just Wages Project is a collaboration with Denver's worker center, Centro Humanitario para los Trabajadores, the Colorado Wage Theft Task Force, the Wage Theft Direct Action Team, and Towards Justice. The project merges research, teaching, policy advocacy, and direct action to understand and tackle wage theft and advance immigrant and worker justice.
The study has been funded at DU by IRISE, a Public Good Grant, and The Korbel Research Fund. Externally it has received funds from the Labor Research and Action Network and the Michael and Alice Kuhn Foundation.
Check out the DU Just Wages Wordpress site thanks to design work by Sam McGinnis and Bianca Garcia. The site has more information about the project, features student writing, public-facing media and op-eds, and the Laboring for Justice book and art exhibit. See here: https://dujustwagesproject.wordpress.com/
Media:
“Laboring for Justice: The Fight Against Wage Theft in an American City.” Heartland Labor Forum (radio). Available here. May 25, 2023.
Laboring for Justice Art Exhibit featured in the DU Clarion. May 2. https://duclarion.com/2023/05/university-of-denver-museum-of-anthropology-is-changing-the-conversation-on-wage-theft-all-thanks-to-dr-galemba/
Denver Business Journal, quoted in article: Denver City Council votes unanimously to bolster wage-theft penalties. January 10, 2023.
TedxMile High talk now featured on Ted.com
Interviewed for TedXMileHigh in “What is Wage Theft?: Rebecca Galemba on the Impacts for Day Laborers” by Anushka Bose. Tedxmilehigh. April 19, 2021.
Fox31Denver KDVR, quoted and appeared in segment on Denver’s new wage theft unit. July 21, 2021.
Research on wage theft featured in DU Newsroom. May 29, 2019
The Denver Channel, quoted in segment on wage theft in nail salons. May 17, 2018.
Featured and mentioned in DU Newsroom story on wage theft. April 5, 2018.
Research featured and quoted in In These Times: “How to Catch a Wage Thief” by Gigi Sukin, December 2017.
Featured work on wage theft in the DU Newsroom. September 18, 2017.
Research study featured by Rocky Mountain PBS. March 4, 2015.
Research on wage theft featured through Telemundo. February 28, 2015.
Op-eds/Policy pieces and Blogs:
Jan. 2023. Solano, Sofia, Rebecca Galemba, and Nina DiSalvo. “Opinion: Workplace justice, immigration enforcement should not be mixed.” The Colorado Sun.
Oct. 2022. Galemba, Rebecca and Randall Kuhn.” Longer duration in the U.S. may exacerbate precarity for immigrant day laborers.” Work in Progress: Sociology on the Economy, Work, and Inequality, American Sociological Association blog.
Feb. 2021. Biden's Immigration Plan Should Do More to Protect Workers. Law360.
May 2020. Anthropology of Wage Theft in Colorado. Anthropology News, Society for Economic Anthropology.
April 2019. Opinion: Criminalizing wage theft is only one step in the right direction. The Colorado Sun.
March 2019. Galemba, Rebecca and Randall Kuhn. White paper: Wage Theft and its Victims in Colorado.
March 2018. David Seligman (Towards Justice), Rebecca Galemba, and the Southwest Regional Council of
Feb 2017. Wage Theft in Denver—Realities and Solutions. Scholars Strategy Network.
Academic Articles:
Galemba, Rebecca and Randall Kuhn. 2021. “No Place for Old Men: Wage Theft and Immigrant Duration, among Day Laborers in Denver, Colorado.” International Migration Review. Online first: DOI: 10.1177/01979183211001370
Galemba, Rebecca B. 2021. "'They Steal our Work’: Wage Theft and the Criminalization of Immigrant Day Laborers in Colorado, USA.” European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research. 27(1): 91-112.