Kateri, Noelle. (2018). The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Paperback: $24.95.

Noelle Kateri Brigden’s The Migrant Passage offers a masterful interweaving of rich ethnographic story-telling and theory-building. The book is the result of more than two years of field work in El Salvador and Mexico, along key routes for border crossers. Brigden draws on an anthropological orientation to theorize crossing itself, focusing on how migrants’ journeys are characterized by improvisations, and how these improvisations shift and alter the political and material landscapes of Mexico.