Futile Borders: Why Borders Fail and How Borders Function in the Incomplete

Project of Settler Colonialism

Organizers: Shoukia van Beek (University of Victoria) and Alisa Hartsell (Texas State
University)
Sponsored by Legal Geography Specialty Group, Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group,
and the Political Geography Specialty Group
AAG Theme: Toward More Just Geographies

Although the border is at the forefront of North American politics, it is rarely theorized as a
powerful tool in the ongoing violent work of settler colonialism. Certainly, the legal reach of
the state is extended externally and outwards in order to preserve imperial power while
regulating and restricting immigration and mobility through racialized strategies of
interdiction, deterrence, and deportation (Amilhat Szary and Giraut, 2015). However, that
legal reach is also extended internally and inwards. Settler state violence and legal-spatial
violence permeate borders through border enforcement practices of surveillance and
detention (Burridge et al., 2017; Fakhrashrafi et al., 2019) and also through attempts to map
over Indigenous lands and nations by creating colonial certainty over jurisdiction and
national membership (Curley et al., 2022; Luna-Firebaugh, 2002; Miner, 2015; Pratt and
Templeman, 2018; Simpson, 2014; Tauli-Corpuz, 2020). While the law is often presented
as a means of addressing harm through reform, it is through law, legal decision-making,
and formal processes, policies, and practices that legal-spatial border violence is enacted
and sustained (Basaran, 2010; Bauder and Breen, 2022; Kreichauf, 2021; Lightfoot, 2021;
Nath, 2021; Pasternak, 2014). Colonial connections between sovereignty, territory, and
authority are articulated in particular ways at and through borders and the legal structures
that help to form, manage, and control borders and mobility weaponize state violence and
operate to assert settler legal authority.

This session invites theoretical, historical, and empirical research that attempts to answer the
urgent yet incendiary question: why should we abolish borders?

We invite critical scholarship focused on North America that brings together the fields of
immigration, border studies, and legal geography. In particular, we welcome papers that “think
jurisdictionally” (Dorsett and McVeigh, 2006) and discuss:
● Indigenous sovereignty and border spatialities;
● lived experiences of the law and jurisdiction;
● interactions of territoriality and Westphalian sovereignty;
● settler-colonialism and border law;
● border imperialism;
● going beyond frameworks of liberal rights;
● strategic engagements with the law as well as moments of resistance, refusal, and
solidarity;
 ● and other topics that bring together critical perspectives on issues related to the law and
borders.

To apply for this paper session, please email Shoukia (shoukia@uvic.ca) and Alisa
(arh160@txstate.edu) by October 30. Also, please indicate your preference for virtual or in-
person presentation (or both), so we can best plan the sessions to accommodate the various
uncertainties we all are facing.

Bibliography

Amilhat Szary, A-L, Giraut, F (eds) (2015) Borderities and the Politics of Contemporary Mobile
Borders. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Basaran, T (2010) Security, Law and Borders: At the Limits of Liberties. New York: Routledge.

Bauder, H., & Breen, R. (2022). Indigenous Perspectives of Immigration Policy in a Settler
Country. Journal of International Migration and Integration. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-022-
00951-4

Burridge, A, Gill, N, Kocher, A (2017) Polymorphic borders. Territory, Politics, Governance 5(3):
239–251.

Curley, A., Gupta, P., Lookabaugh, L., Neubert, C., & Smith, S. (2022). Decolonization is a
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Lightfoot, S. R. (2021). Decolonizing self-determination: Haudenosaunee passports and

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Nath, N. (2021). Curated Hostilities and the Story of Abdoul Abdi: Relational Securitization in the
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borders-indigenous-peoples-victoria