Navigating with Coyotes: Pathways of Central American Migrants in Mexico’s Southern Borders

This article presents research from an ethnographic investigation of the role of the men and women who facilitate clandestine border crossings (known colloquially as coyotes) in the Mexico-Guatemala northern borderlands. A significant portion of the fieldwork took place at La 72, a renowned migrant shelter in the Mexican border city of Tenosique, in the state of Tabasco. Findings suggest that the daily exchanges between migrants and their crossing facilitators constitute constant social negotiations through which these actors enrich their agency and profit from each other’s well-being