Controlling national borders has once again become a key concern of contemporary states and a highly contentious issue in social and political life. But controlling borders is about much more than patrolling territorial boundaries at the edges of states: it now comprises a multitude of practices that take place at different levels, some at the edges of states and some in the local contexts of everyday life – in workplaces, in hospitals, in schools – which, taken together, construct, reproduce and contest borders and the rights and obligations associated with belonging to a nation-state. This book is a systematic exploration of the practices and processes that now define state bordering and the role it plays in national and global governance. Based on original research, it goes well beyond traditional approaches to the study of migration and racism, showing how these processes affect all members of society, not just the marginalized others. The uncertainties arising from these processes mean that more and more people find themselves living in grey zones, excluded from any form of protection and often denied basic human rights.

Compelling and accessible, this Very Short Introduction challenges the perception of borders as passive lines on a map, revealing them instead to be integral forces in the economic, social, political, and environmental processes that shape our lives. Highlighting the historical development and continued relevance of borders, Alexander Diener and Joshua Hagen offer a powerful counterpoint to the idea of an imminent borderless world, underscoring the impact borders have on a range of issues, such as economic development, inter- and intra-state conflict, global terrorism, migration, nationalism, international law, environmental sustainability, and natural resource management. Diener and Hagen demonstrate how and why borders have been, are currently, and will undoubtedly remain hot topics across the social sciences and in the global headlines for years to come. This compact volume will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary audience of scholars and students, including geographers, political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, international relations and law experts, as well as lay readers interested in understanding current events.

As the descendants of Mexican immigrants have settled throughout the United States, a great literature has emerged, but its correspondances with the literature of Mexico have gone largely unobserved. In Bordering Fires, the first anthology to combine writing from both sides of the Mexican-U.S. border, Cristina Garc’a presents a richly diverse cross-cultural conversation. Beginning with Mexican masters such as Alfonso Reyes and Juan Rulfo, Garc’a highlights historic voices such as “the godfather of Chicano literature” Rudolfo Anaya, and Gloria Anzaldœa, who made a powerful case for language that reflects bicultural experience. From the fierce evocations of Chicano reality in Jimmy Santiago Baca’s Poem IX to the breathtaking images of identity in Coral Bracho’s poem “Fish of Fleeting Skin,” from the work of Carlos Fuentes to Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo to Octavio Paz, this landmark collection of fiction, essays, and poetry offers an exhilarating new vantage point on our continent–and on the best of contemporary literature. From the Trade Paperback edition.

What is a border? This seemingly simple question is here answered via a multidisciplinary study of the cultural, geographic and historic existence of borders, and the ways that they have shaped our world. Using the Danish-Swedish border to illustrate the actions of groups and individuals engaged in bordering since the 1600s, this richly theoretical discussion highlights the complexities of political and cultural identity processes. Comparative perspectives are brought together to produce a thoughtful analysis of how such processes function, and of how borders work on both an imagined nationhood and experiential personal level. The author also examines how throughout history people have lived with and influenced or been influenced by borders, why some borders remain uncontested while others repeatedly provoke cross-border conflicts, and how today's bordering processes may be deliberately manipulated.

This timely book introduces readers to the central question of borders in the twenty-first century. After familiarizing readers with border thinking and making from antiquity to the present, Gabriel Popescu turns a critical eye on current border-making concepts, processes, and contexts. Throughout, he offers a balanced understanding of borders, explaining why and how interstate borders have emerged, whose interest they serve, who is involved in border making, and how border-making practices affect societies. Assessing the latest theoretical approaches to border studies, the author deftly incorporates a range of disciplinary perspectives, including geography, international relations, sociology, history, security studies, and anthropology. Popescu exploresrecent world events, discussing how current issues such as migration, terrorism, global warming, pandemics, the human rights regime, outsourcing, the economic crisis, supranational integration, regionalization, and digital technology relate to borders andinfluence our lives. Written with a clear eye and voice, this book makes a complex subject accessible to a wide readership.

In recent years the borders of Europe have been perceived as being besieged by a staggering refugee and migration crisis. The contributors to The Borders of "Europe" see this crisis less as an incursion into Europe by external conflicts than as the result of migrants exercising their freedom of movement. Addressing the new technologies and technical forms European states use to curb, control, and constrain what contributors to the volume call the autonomy of migration, this book shows how the continent's amorphous borders present a premier site for the enactment and disputation of the very idea of Europe. They also outline how from Istanbul to London, Sweden to Mali, and Tunisia to Latvia, migrants are finding ways to subvert visa policies and asylum procedures while negotiating increasingly militarized and surveilled borders. Situating the migration crisis within a global frame and attending to migrant and refugee supporters as well as those who stoke nativist fears, this timely volume demonstrates how the enforcement of Europe’s borders is an important element of the worldwide regulation of human mobility. Contributors. Ruben Andersson, Nicholas De Genova, Dace Dzenovska, Evelina Gambino, Glenda Garelli, Charles Heller, Clara Lecadet, Souad Osseiran, Lorenzo Pezzani, Fiorenza Picozza, Stephan Scheel, Maurice Stierl, Laia Soto Bermant, Martina Tazzioli

(B)ordering Britain argues that Britain is the spoils of empire, its immigration law is colonial violence and irregular immigration is anti-colonial resistance. In announcing itself as postcolonial through immigration and nationality laws passed in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Britain cut itself off symbolically and physically from its colonies and the Commonwealth, taking with it what it had plundered. This imperial vanishing act cast Britain's colonial history into the shadows. The British Empire, about which Britons know little, can be remembered fondly as a moment of past glory, as a gift once given to the world. Meanwhile immigration laws are justified on the basis that they keep the undeserving hordes out. In fact, immigration laws are acts of colonial seizure and violence. They obstruct the vast majority of racialised people from accessing colonial wealth amassed in the course of colonial conquest. Regardless of what the law, media and political discourse dictate, people with personal, ancestral or geographical links to colonialism, or those existing under the weight of its legacy of race and racism, have every right to come to Britain and take back what is theirs.