Violent Borders
Refugees and the Right to Move
Published on 10. October 2017
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-78478-474-4 (ISBN)
Description
Forty thousand people died trying to cross international borders in the past decade, with the high-profile deaths along the shores of Europe only accounting for half of the grisly total.
Reece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities. "We may live in an era of globalization," he writes, "but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people."
In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and their dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.
Reece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities. "We may live in an era of globalization," he writes, "but much of the world is increasingly focused on limiting the free movement of people."
In Violent Borders, Jones crosses the migrant trails of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects and their dire consequences for countless millions. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slum dwellings in the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel without constraint, exploiting pools of cheap labor and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, environmental degradation, and the growth of global wealth inequality.
Reviews / Votes
Focuses helpfully on an uncomfortable and generally overlooked fact - that in recent years border control regimes have become increasingly and often horrifically militarised in many parts of the world. Physical restraints in the shape of walls and security fences have multiplied; the body count is appallingly high. For Jones, this shows that the institutions of the modern state are essentially violent. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman * A much-needed counter to a thousand newspaper columns calling on us to secure our borders, Reece Jones' Violent Borders goes beyond the headlines to look at the deeper causes of the migration crisis. Borders, Jones convincingly argues, are a means of inflicting violence on poor people. This is an engaging and lucid analysis of a much misunderstood issue. -- Arun Kundnani, author of The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror From early modern land enclosures through Westphalian state formation to the current fortification of the US-Mexico frontier, Reece Jones explains what a boundary is, and how national sovereignty is being reinforced, in an age of capital mobility, by the crackdown on human movement across borders. -- Jeremy Harding, author of Border Vigils: Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World I'd like an endless supply of Reece Jones' Violent Borders to hand out to all the people I meet who flirt with an anti-refugee sensibility. This book is the antidote to the world of walls that we live in, an argument for a world of humanity. -- Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South In an era of terrorism, global inequality, and rising political tension over migration, Jones argues that tight border controls make the world worse, not better. * Boston Globe *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 199 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
250 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78478-474-4 (9781784784744)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2016
Verso Books
€16.49
Available for download
Previous edition
Book
10/2016
Verso Books
€41.07
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Person
Reece Jones is a Professor of Geography at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, and the author of Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the United States, India, and Israel.