Challenging Borders - by Paul McKenzie-Jones & Sheila McManus & Julie Young (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Analyzing the geographies of oppression and resistance from compelling new angles.

Borders are known for their paradoxical qualities. Sometimes they are shifting and porous, lines in the sand constituted more by subjective experience than by legal definition; at other times they harden into walls, are heavily securitized, and their primary function becomes keeping the unwanted out. Challenging Borders: Contingencies and Consequences sets out to explore the concrete, complex effects of borders on human aspirations and lives, while at the same time underscoring the diversity of individual encounters with these deceptively invisible lines.

Drawing on insights from history, geography, Indigenous studies, political science, refugee and migration studies, the visual arts, and even physics, contributors to the collection examine the role of borders in the ongoing negotiation of national identities, in contested claims of sovereignty and belonging, in the tensions between freedom of movement and restrictions on entry, and in the use of violence in the name of security.

About the Author

Paul McKenzie-Jones is a settler associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Lethbridge and an external research affiliate with the Purai Global Indigenous and Diaspora Research Center of the University of Newcastle, Australia. Sheila McManus is professor of history and one-third of the Lethbridge Border Studies research group. Julie Young is associate professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in critical border studies in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Lethbridge.