On the margins : U.S. Americans in a border town to Mexico

Introduction
- Anthropological views of the border land
- Marxist Anthropology
- Practice
- Information
- What community?
- Going to Douglas

Chapter 1: Places
- The pasta crisis: social life at the Lerman
-- Getting to know one another
-- Social Life
-- The not so socials
- Chatting at El Unico
- Checking out girls at the library
- The Douglas Cultural Elite
- The Lermaners gone bookish
- Ghetto people at La Mitota
- Games at 10th Street Park
- Living history at the Douglas Wendt's house
- Fascists at the gun shop
- Cross-spatial events
-- John's good-bye reception
-- The drug war
-- The election
- Conclusion

Chapter 2: Money
- Mr. Fernandez
- John
- Art
- Zack
- Joe
- Stuart
- Keoki
- Borane
- Sarah and Tom
- Bicycle Victor
- Garry Mora
- Maria
- Jeff and January
- Conclusion
- Class
- Economic constructions of community

Chapter 3: Crossing the line
- Physical Border
- Shopping the hard way
- The prostitute
- Zack physical
- Keoki and The Physical Border
- Winter Visitors
- Local Youngsters
- Victor's first time
- Language Boundary
- Oscar, first Hispanic president
- Keoki, rock worker
- Stuart, more than Mexican
- Cultural Barrier
-- Chicken for Coffee
-- John socializing
-- Keoki goes to Tucson
-- Victor living in the United States
-- The trailer park
-- Art & Tom
-- Stuart crossing without crossing
-- Jeff staying where he is
-- Kevin, the borderless
- Conclusion
-- Keoki
-- John
-- Means of Crossing
-- Helpful Destruction?
-- Material Reasons for Persistence of the Border
-- Particular features

Chapter 4: Crime
- Structural-Marxist Model
- Political-Economical Model
- Crime in border lands
- John's got a gun
- Petty Crimes
-- The Social Security Scam
-- Registering Cars
- Street kids
- Registering Foreign Voters
- Copying Music
- Final Analysis
-- Conclusion

Chapter 5: War & Nationalism
- The recruiter
- Douglas graduates
- War is Over
- The Anti-Nationals
- Foreign, but Nationalist
- U.S. American Nationalist
- Final Analysis: Soldiers as proletarians?

Chapter 6: Douglas and the World
- Douglas connected to the United States
- Connection through comparability
- Connection through interdependence
- Douglas disconnected from the United States
- Agents from the outside
- Law Enforcement
- Hiding from the government

Conclusion
- Class
- The Importance of Structure
- A prophetic value?
- Social stratification
- The times, they are changing?
- Action?
- Problems
- Positive factors

Appendix
- People
- History & Relevant Terms
- Theoretical Tools & Problems

Bibliography

reviews Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology (Oslo/Amsterdam) Wilm weaves a convincing and compelling picture of the precarious, reckless and often paradoxical lives led by people in Douglas. Joe Bavier, War Correspondent Wilm gives us an insightful, sometimes frightening but always entertaining, look at a small corner of the superpower... Book Description Johannes Wilm, an organizer and activist from Oslo, Norway, goes off to live in and study Douglas, AZ, a border town to Mexico, for half a year. At first sight, Douglas looks like nothing more than a run down company town -- after the Phelps Dodge smelter left in the 1980s. Interestingly though, Wilm discovers that old modes of social stratification disappeared together with the jobs. He looks at the part of the population that is most connected to the United States, and its view of the United States. Is the United States a protector against the poor masses that are streaming in from Mexico? Or is the United States a government and social structure that decides upon local things from far, far away? Wilm claims that "this book has to be seen as a tribute to the progressive sides of what Karl Marx termed the 'lumpenproletariat'." Synopsis Johannes Wilm, an organizer and activist from Oslo, Norway, goes off to live in and study Douglas, AZ, a border town to Mexico, for half a year. At first sight, Douglas looks like nothing but a run down company town - after the Phelps Dodge smelter left in the 1980s. Interestingly though, Wilm discovers that old modes of social stratification disappeared together with the jobs. This book has to be seen as a tribute to the progressive sides of the lumpenproletariat. "This is a well written, experience-near ethnography of marginality in every sense of the word: Douglas is literally on the margins between the USA and Mexico, it is geographically marginal, economically marginal and culturally marginal in the US context. Wilm weaves a convincing and compelling picture of the precarious, reckless and often paradoxical lives led by people in Douglas." -Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology (Oslo/Amsterdam) About the Author Johannes Wilm (1980-) is the son of Danish Pia Wilm and German Gero Wilm. He grew up in the Danish minority with its kindergardens, schools and youth clubs on the German side of the German-Danish border.In high school he discovered socialist ideas as an alternative to the nationalist ideologies many of those around him believed in. And around the time of the Kosovo war, he turned into an activist with the German socialist party Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). He ran for the Schleswig-Holstein state assembly in early 2000. After graduating, he moved to Oslo, Norway in order to avoid the draft of both Germany and Denmark. He has been an activist in Norway since. In 2005 he earned his M.Phil. in Social Anthropology from the University of Oslo. Excerpted from On the Margins - US Americans in a Border Town to Mexico by Johannes Wilm. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. John's got a gun One Sunday afternoon, when getting back from Mexico with John, he asks me whether I want to take a shower at his place. John has been offering me to take showers at his place during the entire time since I have moved out of the Lerman as Stuart does not have any hot water, so I think nothing of it. We pass Stuart's house and I drop my back pack of and get my shower gel and towel and then we continue on walking to his place. On the way, John starts talking: JOHN: You know, when you talk to Art the next time could you ask him whether he still has his gun? JOHANNES: Sure . . . JOHN: But, you know, don't tell him I asked. Just say you have a friend who wants to go hunting with it. JOHANNES: OK? JOHN: I just want to know whether he still has it, you know, that's all. JOHANNES: ? JOHN: Well see, I saw a gun in the trash can the other day . . . and it looked kind of like a riffle.[I Believe JOHN is aware that Art's gun is a riffle] JOHANNES: In the trashcan? Like deep inside of it? JOHN: No it was just lying there on top of it. It wasn't even covered. The barrel was even sticking out; that's how I saw it. JOHANNES: So is it still there? JOHN: Ehm, no see, I took it. Imagine what Marcos and some of his friends had done if they found it. . . You know they go and smoke some dope and then they start playing with it and then suddenly they put somebody's eye out. JOHANNES: So where is it now then? JOHN: I cleaned it and put it under my sofa. JOHANNES: OK? JOHN: But, you know, it probably doesn't even work. It was rusty and all. I probably couldn't even shoot anything with it. JOHANNES: Well, but it's still dangerous. JOHN: See, I don't even have any clip for it; the clip is missing. I just want you to look at it. [We arrive at his apartment, and not quite sure what I'm going to await, I follow him to the sofa. He moves the sofa and shows me this shooting weapon which I am unable to classify but which is about a meter long. John wants me to hold it and I do for a second before I give it back.] JOHANNES: Hmm OK, so you don't think it works, huh? JOHN: Nah, it might, you know. But I don't know whether it would do much good. JOHANNES: For what? What do you want to do with it? JOHN: I'm probably not going to use it. . . but you know, I might. JOHANNES: But are you supposed to have any guns at all? I mean since you are a convicted felon and all? JOHN: Ah, I don't think they care. See and if they come here to take it, I might just shoot them. . . . You know, I might just have to shoot them all. You know, all them crooks. And you know them cops are crooks around here as well. . . It's the water. It tastes like shit; like somebody peed in it. I might just need to straighten that up. . . JOHANNES: Don't you think that is just going to put you into ever deeper trouble? . . . Why don't you give the gun to me and I'll put it in my back pack and get it out of here and I'll promise I won't tell them where I got it from. . . . But it's your decision, you know that. JOHN: Well, you know, they might just use it to shoot me then. You know they are looking for guns all the time themselves. They might just be happy that you give them a free one like that. JOHANNES: Well it's your decision, and I'm not going to tell no matter what you choose to do. JOHN: You got scared, huh? JOHANNES: Well, a little. . . JOHN: Go ahead, I'm not going to shoot you while you are taking your shower. JOHANNES: Well, thank you. After the quickest shower in my life, John is standing in the kitchen. I apologize and tell him I have a very important date with Stuart at his house right then before I run to the door. After a bit of running around, I get a hold of Keoki, and he comes downtown. Stuart and Art sit outside Stuart's house, and they continue to do so, even after hearing that John might be up to no good. Keoki takes the situation somewhat more serious, and he suggests that we go over to the 'pig station' (as Stuart calls it) and file a report. "Your concept of being an independent researcher will be smashed all to pieces then though," Keoki argues, but he also agrees that I should report on it nevertheless. Before we drive over to the former railway station which has been given a new purpose, we drive by John's apartment in order to be absolutely sure what the address is. When I go to what looks like the former ticket counter, I press the button that is supposed to make someone come out to talk to me, while Keoki is waiting in the car.