Border Politics: Social Movements, Collective Identities, and Globalization

Published by New York University Press 2014

Border Politics

Social Movements, Collective Identities, and Globalization

Edited by: Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479858170.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the current historical moment borders have taken on heightened material and symbolic significance, shaping identities and the social and political landscape. “Borders”—defined broadly to include territorial dividing lines as well as sociocultural boundaries—have become increasingly salient sites of struggle over social belonging and cultural and material resources. How do contemporary activists navigate and challenge these borders? What meanings do they ascribe to different social, cultural and political boundaries, and how do these meanings shape the strategies in which they engage? Moreover, how do these social movements confront internal borders based on the differences that emerge within social change initiatives?

Border Politics, edited by Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez, explores these important questions through eleven carefully selected case studies situated in geographic contexts around the globe. By conceptualizing struggles over identity, social belonging and exclusion as extensions of border politics, the authors capture the complex ways in which geographic, cultural, and symbolic dividing lines are blurred and transcended, but also fortified and redrawn. This volume notably places right-wing and social justice initiatives in the same analytical frame to identify patterns that span the political spectrum. Border Politics offers a lens through which to understand borders as sites of diverse struggles, as well as the strategies and practices used by diverse social movements in today’s globally interconnected world.

Contributors: Phillip Ayoub, Renata Blumberg, Yvonne Braun, Moon Charania, Michael Dreiling, Jennifer Johnson, Jesse Klein, Andrej Kurnik, Sarah Maddison, Duncan McDuie-Ra, Jennifer Bickham Mendez, Nancy A. Naples, David Paternotte, Maple Razsa, Raphi Rechitsky, Kyle Rogers, Deana Rohlinger, Cristina Sanidad, Meera Sehgal, Tara Stamm, Michelle Téllez

Author / Editor information

Naples Nancy A. :

Nancy A. Naples is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of many books, including Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research, and Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work, and the War on Poverty.Mendez Jennifer Bickham :

Jennifer Bickham Mendez is Associate Professor of Sociology at The College of William & Mary. She is author of From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor and Globalization in Nicaragua (2005). Her scholarship has appeared in such journals as Gender and Society, Mobilization, Social Problems and Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Reviews

This edited volume highlights many contemporary geopolitical issues in the social sciences. The contributors take a global perspective, examining problems from Asia, North America, Australia, Europe, and Africa.

The edited collection offers an important contribution to the sociology of bordering. Rather than focusing on struggles over the militarization of geographical borderlands as outlined by scholars like Reece Jones, the contribution of the book lies in its original approach to the analysis of social movements for which borders and boundaries are sites of struggle. More precisely, the chapters depict how these social movements maintain, contest, produce, and dissolve borders and boundaries.

Pablo Vila,author of Border Identifications and Ethnography at the Border:
Border Politics is a groundbreaking book on how borders and boundariesboth territorial and symbolicshape the mobilization of social movements at the same time that they are instrumental in the very often conflicting identity construction processes of social movements participants. Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez have arranged a significant, comprehensive, and timely collection of essays.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction
1. Border Politics: Contests over Territory, Nation, Identity, and Belonging Jennifer Bickham Mendez and Nancy A. Naples Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Part I Gendered, Ethno-Nationalist Struggles and Militarization
2. “Border Granny Wants You!”: Grandmothers Policing Nation at the US-Mexico Border Jennifer L. Johnson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
3. Defending the Nation: Militarism, Women’s Empowerment, and the Hindu Right Meera Sehgal Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
4. Borders, Territory, and Ethnicity: Women and the Naga Peace Process Duncan McDuie-Ra Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
5. Imperial Gazes and Queer Politics: Re/Reading Female Political Subjectivity in Pakistan Moon M. Charania Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
Part II Politicized Identities and Belonging
6. Indigenous Peoples and Colonial Borders: Sovereignty, Nationhood, Identity, and Activism Sarah Maddison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
7. Constricting Boundaries: Collective Identity in the Tea Party Movement Deana A. Rohlinger, Jesse Klein, Tara M. Stamm and Kyle Rogers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
8. Occupy Slovenia: How Migrant Movements Contributed to New Forms of Direct Democracy Maple Razsa and Andrej Kurnik Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	206
9. Challenging Borders, Imagining Europe: Transnational LGBT Activism in a New Europe Phillip M. Ayoub and David Paternotte Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
Part III Contested Solidarities and Emerging Sites of Struggle
10. Frames, Boomerangs, and Global Assemblages: Border Distortions in the Global Resistance to Dam Building in Lesotho Yvonne A. Braun and Michael C. Dreiling Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
11. Networks, Place, and Barriers to Cross-Border Organizing: “No Border” Camping in Transcarpathia, Ukraine Renata Blumberg and Raphi Rechitsky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
12. “Giving Wings to Our Dreams”: Binational Activism and Workers’ Rights Struggles in the San Diego–Tijuana Border Region Michelle Téllez and Cristina Sanidad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
Conclusion
13. Border Politics: Creating a Dialogue between Border Studies and Social Movements Jennifer Bickham Mendez and Nancy A. Naples Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	381
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: October 31, 2014
ISBN: 9781479858170