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Borderscapes

Hidden Geographies and Politics at Territory’s Edge

2007
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Prem Kumar Rajaram and Carl Grundy-Warr, editors

Borderscapes

A multidisciplinary exploration of national borders—in theory and in practice

Conceptualizing such places as immigration detention camps and refugee camps as areas of political contestation, this work forcefully argues that borders and migration are, ultimately, inextricable from questions of justice and its limits.

Contributors: Didier Bigo, Karin Dean, Elspeth Guild, Emma Haddad, Alexander Horstmann, Alice M. Nah, Suvendrini Perera, James D. Sidaway, Nevzat Soguk, Decha Tangseefa, Mika Toyota.

This book goes beyond existing accounts of borders under conditions of transnationalism, moving from border surveillance through border panics to the shifting nature of borders geographically and politically.

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John Agnew, UCLA

Connecting critical issues of state sovereignty with empirical concerns, Borderscapes interrogates the limits of political space. The essays in this volume analyze everyday procedures, such as the classifying of migrants and refugees, security in European and American detention centers, and the DNA sampling of migrants in Thailand, showing the border as a moral construct rich with panic, danger, and patriotism.

Conceptualizing such places as immigration detention camps and refugee camps as areas of political contestation, this work forcefully argues that borders and migration are, ultimately, inextricable from questions of justice and its limits.

Contributors: Didier Bigo, Institut d’Études Politiques, Paris; Karin Dean; Elspeth Guild, U of Nijmegen; Emma Haddad; Alexander Horstmann, U of Münster; Alice M. Nah, National U of Singapore; Suvendrini Perera, Curtin U of Technology, Australia; James D. Sidaway, U of Plymouth, UK; Nevzat Soguk, U of Hawai‘i; Decha Tangseefa, Thammasat U, Bangkok; Mika Toyota, National U of Singapore.

Borderscapes

Prem Kumar Rajaram is associate professor of sociology and social anthropology at Central European University. He has published on migration studies, social theory, and international relations in several journals, including Journal of Refugee Studies, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, and Review of International Studies.

Borderscapes

This book goes beyond existing accounts of borders under conditions of transnationalism, moving from border surveillance through border panics to the shifting nature of borders geographically and politically.

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John Agnew, UCLA

Borderscapes is a readable and very welcome intervention on the politics and process of migration.

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Journal of Refugee Studies

Many of the essays in this book make a number of worthwhile contributions to emerging debates about the social and political significance of borders.

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Canadian Journal of Sociology

This is an interdisciplinary, theoretically sophisticated book.

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Anthropology Review Database