Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders

We are very happy to announce the publication of a book that looks at the transformations affecting border spaces, by using the concept of the 'mobile border' to examine the growing dissociation between border functions and border locations. The book bears witness to the claim that de/rebordering and de/reterritorialization processes are not equivalent. It questions them through the analysis of 'borderities,' a concept built upon a close reading of the writings of Michel Foucault and derived from 'governmentality.' 'Borderity,' any technology of spatial or socio-spatial division, could be defined as the governmentality of territorial limits. Although initially defined as a technology of power, borderity may also appear as a differentiated social and political quality. The contributors examine the production of mobile borders (section 1: technologies), their incarnation (section 2: biopolitics) and their complex interpretation (section 3: 'dispositifs'). By looking at how political subjects can be disabled and enabled, the proposed 'borderities' approach illuminates the question of how borders can be the site of both power and counter-power.

Regards
Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary and Frédéric Giraut

If you want to know more about it, cf following links to presentation flyer and open-access introduction : 

http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9781137468840_sample.pdf

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/borderities-and-the-politics-of-contemporary-mobile-borders-anne-laure-amilhat-szary/?K=9781137468840

 

1. Borderities: The Politics Of Contemporary Mobile Borders; Anne-Laure Amilhat-Szary and Frédéric Giraut

PART I: CONTROLLING MOBILITY THE NORMATIVE POWER OF BORDERITIES
2. Bordering Capabilities Versus Borders: Implications For National Borders; Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, USA.
3. Nations Outside Their Borders: How Extraterritorial Concessions Reinforce Sovereignty; Michael J. Strauss, Centre d'études diplomatiques et stratégiques, France.
4. The Politics Of Eco-Frontiers: When Environmentality Meets Borderities; Sylvain Guyot, University of Limoges, France. 
5. The Border In The Pocket: Passport As A Boundary Object; Jouni Häkli, University of Tampere, Finland.
6. Controlling Mobility: Embodying Borders; Gabriel Popescu, Indiana University South Bend, USA. 

PART II: BIOPOLITICS. INCARNATING THE MOBILE BORDER
7. Mobile And Fatal: The EU Borders; Nicolas Lambert and Olivier Clochard, , CNRS, France. 
8. Mobile Euro/African Borderscapes: Migrant Communities And Shifting Urban Margins; Chiara Brambilla, Universita di Bergamo, Italy
9. Ethnographic Notes On 'Camp' – Centrifugality And Liminality On The Rainforest Frontier; Thomas Hendricks, KU Leuven University, Belgium. 
10. Smuggling: Power Networks, Moral Geographies And Norm Enforcement At Work At Southern Cone Borders; Adriana Dorfman, Universidad Federal de Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. 

PART III: DISPOSITIFS. INTERPRETING COMPLEX AND MOBILE BORDERS 
11. Rethinking Borders In A Mobile World: An Alternative Model; Olivier Walther and Denis Retaillé, , University of Southern Denmark, Denmark and Bordeaux University, France.
12. Mapping Mobile Borders. Critical Cartographies Of Borders Based On Migration Experiences.; Sarah Mekdjian, Université de Grenoble-Alpes, France.
13. Tangier, Mobile City: Re-Making Borders In The Straits Of Gibraltar; Luiza Bialasiewicz, Universiteit van Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
14. Territorial And Non-Territorial: The Mobile Borders Of Migration Controls; Paolo Cuttitta, VU University Amsterdam. 
Epilogue
15. Alternative Ways Of Mapping The Wound Or Symbolic Borderities; Ariane Littman, Visual Artist, Israel

 

 'Border Studies passed in two decades from marginal specialty to central interdisciplinary field and problematic: it is now a crowded intellectual public space… Nevertheless, by creating a new concept, borderities, which at the same time subverts and generalizes the old 'juridical-territorial' notion, the authors of this book brilliantly succeed in transforming it, decisively 'mobilizing' the spatial, political, demographic and esthetic dimensions of a phénomène social total [comprehensive/total social phenomenon] that is an institution, an instrument of power and a lived experience, but also, quite often, a wound.' - Etienne Balibar, author of Equaliberty (2014), Columbia University, New York, USA

'Anyone who is interested in the workings of borders in a globalized world should read this book. With the remarkable concept of 'borderity,' this book goes beyond circular definitions of the state, territory, and borders – in which each of these terms seems to call forth the others – to instead usher in a new socio-spatial understanding of the border equal to our challenging times.' - Anna Secor, University of Kentucky, USA

'Through this important collaborative intervention, Amilhat Szary and Giraut, at long last, bring the promise of the widely heralded 'spatial turn' to border studies. Breaking through the by-now tedious incantation that borders have not disappeared as a result of globalization and 'are still with us', the contributors to this exciting volume move the discipline's goalposts by articulating a powerfully normative political project for border studies, one that is critically attuned to the geometries of power and their effects in every act of de/re-bordering. Unafraid of critical social theory, demonstrating a cutting-edge spatial sensibility and alive to both the epistemological and governmental stakes of borders-on-the-move (ie, 'borderities'), the volume reveals an international palette of established border scholarship at the top of its game, including an up-and-coming generation of voices eager to make their mark on the field. Their work will challenge us to expand the future horizon of border studies in richly unanticipated directions.'- Olivier Thomas Kramsch, Radboud University, The Netherlands

'Fueled by discontent with the 'tautological binding of territory, state and border,' these authors respond boldly to calls for new border theories. Their creative collection offers thought-provoking and visually-stimulating ideas on the separation of border controls from locations. These are new insights in border studies, a field that is old, but ever-changing.' - Alison Mountz, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada