Borders and Migration

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, pundits rejoiced at the dawn of a new world without walls. Instead, walls are becoming increasingly common. This course investigates how walls symbolize and contribute to the tension between security and control on the one hand, and freedom on the other. Why is violence at borders escalating? What are impacts of border securitization on the lives of border residents? How should we understand the opening of borders to trade and closing borders to migrants? From the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to the borderlands of Afghanistan, this course deploys ethnography to investigate issues commonplace to zones of contact such as linguistic variation and innovation as well as the role of the state in constructing and codifying notions of citizenship and sovereignty at international (and in some cases interior) boundaries.