A Companion to Border Studies

by Thomas M. Wilson (Editor), Hastings Donnan (Editor)

Overview

Dramatic growth in the number of international borders has coincided in recent years with greater mobility than ever before–of goods, people and ideas. As a result, interest in borders as a focus of academic study has developed into a dynamic, multi-disciplinary field, embracing perspectives from anthropology, development studies, geography, history, political science and sociology. Authors provide a comprehensive examination of key characteristics of borders and frontiers, including cross-border cooperation, security and controls, migration and population displacements, hybridity, and transnationalism.

Companion to Border Studies brings together these disciplines and viewpoints, through the writing of an international collection of preeminent border scholars. Drawing on research from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, the contributors argue that the future of Border Studies lies within such diverse collaborations, which approach comparatively the features of borders worldwide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118255254
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	03/28/2012
Series:	Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology , #46
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	640
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Thomas M. Wilson is Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University, State University of New York. From 2008-2010 he was president of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe.

Hastings Donnan is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan have previously co-authored The Anthropology of Ireland and Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State.

Read an Excerpt

Click to read or download

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Table viii

Notes on Contributorsix

1 Borders and Border Studies 1
Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan

Part I Sovereignty, Territory and Governance 27

2 Partition 29
Brendan O’Leary

3 Culture Theory and the US–Mexico Border 48
Josiah McC. Heyman

4 The African Union Border Programme in European Comparative Perspective 66
Anthony I. Asiwaju

5 European Politics of Borders, Border Symbolism and Cross-Border Cooperation 83
James Wesley Scott

6 Securing Borders in Europe and North America 100
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly

7 Border Regimes, the Circulation of Violence and the Neo-authoritarian Turn 119
John Borneman

Part II States, Nations and Empires 137

8 Borders in the New Imperialism 139
James Anderson

9 Contested States, Frontiers and Cities 158
Liam O’Dowd

10 The State, Hegemony and the Historical British-US Border 177
Allan K. McDougall and Lisa Philips

11 Nations, Nationalism and “Borderization” in the Southern Cone 194
Alejandro Grimson

12 Debordering and Rebordering the United Kingdom 214
Cathal McCall

13 “Swarming” at the Frontiers of France, 1870–1885 230
Olivier Thomas Kramsch

14 Borders and Conflict Resolution 249
David Newman

Part III Security, Order and Disorder 267

 

15 Chaos and Order along the (Former) Iron Curtain 269
Mathijs Pelkmans

16 Border Security as Late-Capitalist “Fix” 283
Brenda Chalfin

17 Identity, the State and Borderline Disorder 301
Dan Rabinowitz

18 African Boundaries and the New Capitalist Frontier 318
Timothy Raeymaekers

19 Bandits, Borderlands and Opium Wars in Afghanistan 332
Jonathan Goodhand

20 Biosecurity, Quarantine and Life across the Border 354
Alan Smart and Josephine Smart

21 Permeabilities, Ecology and Geopolitical Boundaries 371
Hilary Cunningham

Part IV Displacement, Emplacement and Mobility 387

22 Borders and the Rhythms of Displacement, Emplacement and Mobility 389
Pamela Ballinger

23 Remapping Borders 405
Henk van Houtum

24 From Border Policing to Internal Immigration Control in the United States 419
Mathew Coleman

25 Labor Migration, Trafficking and Border Controls 438
Michele Ford and Lenore Lyons

26 Spatial Strategies for Rebordering Human Migration at Sea 455
Alison Mountz and Nancy Hiemstra

27 “B/ordering” and Biopolitics in Central Asia 473
Nick Megoran

28 Border, Scene and Obscene 492
Nicholas De Genova

Part V Space, Performance and Practice 505

29 Border Show Business and Performing States 507
David B. Coplan

30 Performativity and the Eventfulness of Bordering Practices 522
Robert J. Kaiser

31 Reconceptualizing the Space of the Mexico–US Borderline 538
Robert R. Alvarez, Jr

32 Border Towns and Cities in Comparative Perspective 557
Paul Nugent

33 A Sense of Border 573
Sarah Green

Index 593

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book, with its interdisciplinary team of authors from many world regions, shows the state of the art in this research field admirably."
—Ulf Hannerz, Stockholm University

"This volume will be the definitive work on borders and border-related processes for years into the future. The editors have done an outstanding job of identifying key themes, and of assembling influential scholars to address these themes."
—David Nugent, Emory University

"This urgently needed Companion, edited by two leading figures of border studies, reflects past insights and showcases new directions: a must read for understanding territory, power and the state."
—Dr. Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick

"This impressive collection will have a broad appeal beyond specialist border studies. Anyone with an interest in the nation-state, nationalism, ethnicity, political geography or, indeed, the whole historical project of the modern world system will want to have access to a copy. The substantive scope is global and the intellectual reach deep and wide. Simply indispensable."
—Richard Jenkins, University of Sheffield

Editorial Reviews

Taking into consideration all aspects this book has a very important role in the professional literature of border studies.”  (Cross-Border Review Yearbook of the European Institute, 1 September 2014)

“Summing Up: Highly recommended.  Upper-division undergraduates and above.”  (Choice, 1 April 2013)

From the Publisher