Carlos Ernesto Ruiz Juárez, Reynaldo Germán Martínez Velasco
En este documento se abordan procesos de interacción, tensión, conflicto e intereses en la zona fronteriza entre México y Guatemala. En el comercio informal transfronterizo participan actores con cuya agencia despliegan transacciones sociales, políticas, económicas y territoriales, más allá del límite fronterizo. Destacan los comerciantes guatemaltecos que compran mercadería a tienderos mexicanos minoristas y mayoristas; también camareros de origen guatemalteco quienes mediante balsas transportan los productos a través del río Suchiate. Con base en una perspectiva conceptual sustentada en la relación dialéctica entre la frontera límite como tal y el accionar de los actores fronterizos, se concluye que en la zona de estudio se ha conformado un proceso de integración comercial transfronterizo de corte informal, que en los hechos trasciende la frontera límite para dar paso a una frontera permisiva.
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.