Racism and Borders : Representation, Repression, Resistance

Despite claims about globalization, we see increasing surveillance, tightened restrictions and growing punitive regimes at international borders.

This critical collection examines processes of racialization in relation to border regulations and restrictions. It analyses border controls, racism, and representations of race, within multinational contexts as aspects of neo-liberal governance. It also looks at means by which people resist or challenge racialization.

This collection uses the lenses of sociology, criminology, art, literary criticism and political science to critically examine varied processes of racialization, criminalization and resistance in relation to borders with reference to multi-national contexts in the current period.

While policies like SB 1070, Arizona's now infamous immigration legislation, have raised issues of racial profiling and policing practices, there have been few detailed analyses of broader practices of racialization and racism at borders more extensively.

Some works have focused specifically upon profiling, without looking at varied processes of racialization. In addition, most studies of border controls have examined the US context, while few have looked at racism and racialization and borders in multinational contexts as the current work does.

The work provides analyses of constructions of race and repressive border policies and examines critically larger policy questions in the context of neoliberal governance practices. It can serve as a primary or supplementary text for university courses in Criminology, Sociology, Politics, Geography, Cultural Studies and International Affairs.

Beyond academia, it provides a useful resource for civil liberties and human rights groups, advocacy movements and community organizations supporting immigrants and refugees as well as those representing members of racialized non-migrant communities in diverse contexts.

The Editor's introduction examines the historical and recent contexts of racial profiling and resistance to profiling, especially since 9/11 and the war on terror. Chapters contributed by scholars from a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and institutions explore the problem of “the Other,” the power and means of defining “territory,” gender, the treatment of indigenous peoples, and the active and passive ways in which those in the dominant group step over, obliterate, abuse and turn a blind eye to all other groups.

In contrast, Graciela Susana Boruszko discusses the concept of “hospitality” -- calling upon each of us to “make room for the other” and asserting that “divergent perspectives do not call for reconciliation but to remain standing at ease, side by side, while we disagree on that issue.

It is a work that will provide a rich resource for those interested in issues of border controls and migration beyond the din of mainstream media discussions. It will be of value to academics and researchers on border and migration issues as well as community advocates dealing with the issues everyday on the front lines.

Jeff Shantz, the editor, teaches critical theory, elite deviance, community and human rights in the Department of Criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Metro Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of the book Living Anarchy: Theory and Practice in Anarchist Movements. His writings have appeared in leading international journals including Critical Sociology, Critique of Anthropology, Feminist Review and New Politics as well as numerous anthologies. A longtime community organizer, he has been a member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and host of the weekly "Anti-Poverty Report" on radio stations CHRY and CKLN in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Shantz received his Ph.D. from York University in Toronto.