“Provides an exemplar of evidentiary standards in material analysis. [Lopez] is thorough in her attention to objects and people and the multiple discordant relations in which they are entwined, and her methodological breadth evades ‘reading’ the affordances of material things in and of themselves.”

Qualitative Sociology

“Throughout her book, and with a great writing talent, Lopez highlights the individual, group, societal and state manifestations of the Remittance Landscape as well as the evolution of these different levels of manifestation. . . . An excellent tool for understanding a particular case of transnational practices involving migrants’ investment in two countries sharing a common border.”
 

Ethnic and Racial Studies

“Visually pleasing. . . . A welcome addition to migration studies.”

Journal of American History

“A valuable contribution. . . . Lopez has produced a thought-provoking and compelling piece of scholarship that expertly guides readers through largely unexplored terrain.”

Buildings and Landscapes

"In The Remittance Landscape, Sarah Lynn Lopez analyzes the impact of migrant led-development on Mexico's rural countryside. Lopez's book adds to work that draws into question the lasting effects of remittances on migrant-sending communities. Her text us the first to examine migration through the lens of the built environment. Lopez's analysis draws on a sophisticated interdisciplinary lens that allows the reader to gain a better understanding of the long-term effects of emigration within migrant villages. . . .In turning the unit of analysis on the built environment, Lopez reveals the agency inherent to migration."

Journal of American Ethnic History

“Lopez breaks new ground in her study of the remittance landscape in all sorts of important ways. She provocatively links the rural and the urban, the north and the south, and her sympathy for her subjects is clear as she weaves into her narrative an unsparing analysis of Mexican state policy. The devastating consequences unfold, chapter by chapter, as Lopez shows how a traditional landscape is destroyed and social inequalities further embedded, further ingrained rather than remedied.”

Marta Gutman, Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York

“Lopez’s beautifully written, deeply insightful book captures an aspect of migration that few have seen before, namely the paradoxical ways in which emigrants’ continuing connections to their places of origin reveal the transformations that they have undergone as immigrants in the place of destination. Based on the author’s ethnographic immersion in Mexican sending communities, The Remittance Landscape offers the reader an abundance of fascinating material, all presented skillfully and rendered in compelling fashion, thanks to Lopez’s acute powers of observation. A book sure to have lasting appeal and a must-read for any serious student of migration.”

Roger Waldinger, University of California, Los Angeles

“Lopez shows that the economic and cultural trace left by the migration of people, cultures, and money is changing the architecture of houses and sociabilités both in Mexican towns and American cities. The Remittance Landscape is a superb blend of historical and spatial imagination; social, cultural, and architecture history; and historical research and ethnography.”

Mauricio Tenorio, University of Chicago

"The Remittance Landscape offers an excellent read to scholars and students in migration studies, geography, anthropology and Latin American studies....Lopez' detailed observations enable the reader to feel the frustration over the traps embedded in the act of migration - an act as old as the world and as unstoppable as the wind."

European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies