Theory of the Border

In the introduction, the author gives a brief input on moving borders. He states that “despite the celebration of globalization and the increasing necessity of global mobility, there are more types of borders today than ever before in history” (p. 1). Thomas Nail then attempts to provide a conceptual and historical framework for analyzing borders across various domains of social life.

Borders introduce a division into the world. This definition has four consequences for a theory of the border:

1. the border is in between,
2. the border is in motion, 
3. the border is a process of circulation,
4. the border is not reducible to space.

Based on these four consequences a methodology, or a « critical limology », is outlined in order to analyze four material and social types of borders: political, territorial economic and juridical.

In part I, entitled “theory of the border”, the author emphasizes the “kinopolitcal” (from the Greek word kino, which means movement) history the border. Two social movements define the border: expansion and expulsion. To build up his argument, the author explains several concepts and theories such as primitive accumulation, kinopolitics, expansion by expulsion, and the border.

In part II, the historical conditions that give rise to the border are analysed. To do so, a radicalization of the concept of primitive accumulation, derived by Marx, is proposed. Under the concept of “expansion by expulsion”, social periodicity is added to this. The analysis in this part is limited to four major types of border technologies and examples are used to clarify these: the fence (the corral, the palisade, the megalith), the wall (the military wall, the rampart wall, the port wall), the cell (the identification cell, the confinement cell, the time cell, Coda: the quarantined city), and the checkpoint (the police checkpoint, the security checkpoint, the information checkpoint). For each type of border the author elaborates the kinetics and presents several examples.

In part III, the contemporary U.S.-Mexico border politics are analysed to show how the concepts developed in the first and in the second part can help to understand the dynamics. The U.S.-Mexico fence (the border in motion, the fence), the U.S.-Mexico wall (federal enforcement operations, the corrugated wall, the port wall), the U.S.-Mexico cell (the identification cell, the detention cell, the time cell), and the U.S.-Mexico checkpoint (the police checkpoint, the security checkpoint, the information checkpoint) are analysed by applying the previously elaborated framework.

Content

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Moving Borders

Part I: Theory of the Border

• Chapter 1: Border Kinopower

Part II: Historical Limology

• Chapter 2: The Fence
• Chapter 3: The Wall
• Chapter 4: The Cell
• Chapter 5: The Checkpoint I
• Chapter 6: The Checkpoint II

Part III: Contemporary Borders: U.S.-Mexico

• Chapter 7: The U.S.-Mexico Fence
• Chapter 8: The U.S.-Mexico Wall
• Chapter 9: The U.S.-Mexico Cell
• Chapter 10: The U.S.-Mexico Checkpoint

Conclusion

Notes

Index