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Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move
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.
In Violent Borders, 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 travels the border regions of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects, and their dire consequences for the majority of the people in the world. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slums and the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel freely, exploiting pools of cheap labour and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, argues Jones, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, the growth of slums, and the persistence of global wealth inequality.
In Violent Borders, 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 travels the border regions of the world, documenting the billions of dollars spent on border security projects, and their dire consequences for the majority of the people in the world. While the poor are restricted by the lottery of birth to slums and the aftershocks of decolonization, the wealthy travel freely, exploiting pools of cheap labour and lax environmental regulations. With the growth of borders and resource enclosures, argues Jones, the deaths of migrants in search of a better life are intimately connected to climate change, the growth of slums, and the persistence of global wealth inequality.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2016
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About the author
Reece Jones
9 books63 followersReece Jones is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai‘i. He is the author of two award-winning books Border Walls (2012) and Violent Borders (2016) as well as over two dozen journal articles and four edited books. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Geopolitics and he lives in Honolulu with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 89 reviews
November 11, 2019
I think it was 2001, the first time someone said to me "open all the borders".
I agreed with them then, without thinking. Born itchy-footed, a science-fiction reader, I knew borders were petty and unnatural.
Since then I've read and heard many migrant narratives, border stories.
But it was only when I myself began to contend with borders, considering my options to be with someone on the other side, that I started revisiting that remark "open all the borders", that I started getting angry, that I started to feel urgently that any ideology aspiring to be ethical must demand all borders everywhere be torn down like the Berlin Wall. I wonder if it was likewise something personal that motivated Reece Jones to write this well-researched and concise book on borders; their histories, their recent hardening and militarization, their devastating effects.
But this book goes much deeper than I expected. It recalls peasant revolts against enclosure, whose leaders were brutally executed despite the fact that their protests were non violent, consisting simply of digging up hedges and filling in ditches. It goes back to the Thirty Years War and its resolution in states agreeing to respect each others territorial sovereignty, and how this led to colonialism, to events that shaped the world of today like the carving up of Africa, a continent where 1500 languages are spoken, into states with borders arbitrarily defined by the demands of European colonists at the Berlin Conference. It explains why and how the UN, an institution founded to maintain respect of borders and sovereignty, will never be able to effect meaningful actions to prevent climate catastrophe, which requires action transcending borders. Most powerfully, it shows how globalisation, wherein capital and corporations move freely while workers and regulations are contained within borders, creates and exacerbates all the economic problems we see today, where a tiny minority manipulates these conditions to extract ever more wealth from an increasingly impoverished and unprotected majority. It draws (surprisingly) on Hayek: regulations on working conditions are perfectly fine, as long as they apply everywhere in the market. When that isn't the case, everyone suffers.
What's the answer? Open all the borders. Ensure decent wages and worker safety everywhere. Create a global body to create and enforce environmental protections.
Still worried about immigrants taking jobs? Jones dispenses with that fear in a couple of paragraphs. Immigrants take up jobs, they earn money, they purchase goods and services, creating more jobs and more wealth. That's what actually happens. Besides, most people prefer to stay in their communities unless there are no good opportunities for them. With equalising labour conditions, fewer people would leave their homelands in the first place. Borders serve the interests of very very few people. For almost everyone, and for the biosphere, they are damaging or deadly.
I agreed with them then, without thinking. Born itchy-footed, a science-fiction reader, I knew borders were petty and unnatural.
Since then I've read and heard many migrant narratives, border stories.
But it was only when I myself began to contend with borders, considering my options to be with someone on the other side, that I started revisiting that remark "open all the borders", that I started getting angry, that I started to feel urgently that any ideology aspiring to be ethical must demand all borders everywhere be torn down like the Berlin Wall. I wonder if it was likewise something personal that motivated Reece Jones to write this well-researched and concise book on borders; their histories, their recent hardening and militarization, their devastating effects.
Restrictions on movement at borders are part of a long term conflict between states and people who move, a conflict that goes back to the earliest states and human settlements. While the regulation of movement takes different forms through various historical periods, the underlying desire to protect privileges accrued through the control of resources and opportunities remains the same.The European Union which my country is, according to the current government, so eager to get out of, is a place so many others are eager to enter, often fleeing conflict or poverty caused by EU countries or their colonial/imperialist activities or legacies. But the exploiter countries have shut their doors. Thousands die trying to enter the EU and other wealthy areas every year. 39 would-be migrants were found dead in a truck here in the UK while I was reading this book. First, the media reported that they were Chinese. Later, as individual stories started to surface linking Vietnamese families to the tragedy, the press referred to them as Vietnamese. I was sickened by the correction, wondering on what flimsy basis the original assumption had been made. Just as Jones writes, the media blamed smugglers and "people traffickers" for the deaths, never once appearing to wonder whether the border and its strict demands for passports, visas, papers please, or the "hostile environment" (or even the kind of racism implicit in a media too lazy to distinguish Vietnamese from other East Asian nationalities) might have some hand in creating dangerous conditions for those urgently seeking a better life elsewhere.
But this book goes much deeper than I expected. It recalls peasant revolts against enclosure, whose leaders were brutally executed despite the fact that their protests were non violent, consisting simply of digging up hedges and filling in ditches. It goes back to the Thirty Years War and its resolution in states agreeing to respect each others territorial sovereignty, and how this led to colonialism, to events that shaped the world of today like the carving up of Africa, a continent where 1500 languages are spoken, into states with borders arbitrarily defined by the demands of European colonists at the Berlin Conference. It explains why and how the UN, an institution founded to maintain respect of borders and sovereignty, will never be able to effect meaningful actions to prevent climate catastrophe, which requires action transcending borders. Most powerfully, it shows how globalisation, wherein capital and corporations move freely while workers and regulations are contained within borders, creates and exacerbates all the economic problems we see today, where a tiny minority manipulates these conditions to extract ever more wealth from an increasingly impoverished and unprotected majority. It draws (surprisingly) on Hayek: regulations on working conditions are perfectly fine, as long as they apply everywhere in the market. When that isn't the case, everyone suffers.
What's the answer? Open all the borders. Ensure decent wages and worker safety everywhere. Create a global body to create and enforce environmental protections.
Still worried about immigrants taking jobs? Jones dispenses with that fear in a couple of paragraphs. Immigrants take up jobs, they earn money, they purchase goods and services, creating more jobs and more wealth. That's what actually happens. Besides, most people prefer to stay in their communities unless there are no good opportunities for them. With equalising labour conditions, fewer people would leave their homelands in the first place. Borders serve the interests of very very few people. For almost everyone, and for the biosphere, they are damaging or deadly.
February 13, 2017
I finished this book almost two weeks ago and needed some time to mull it over. It comes from a decidedly leftist radical standpoint, although the way Reece Jones presents ideas and solutions, they come across as matter of fact. And just to clarify, it doesn't bother me because I tend in that direction, however Jones presents all arguments against the status quo rather than providing a balanced view. That's just what the book is, but helpful to know that when starting.
The book is very well researched and includes very recent data about refugees, immigrants, asylum, income, etc. It is clear, and we can all agree, that we have an uptick on people moving between places. Refugees are a narrow group of those people - according to the UN only those fleeing for persecution or conflict can count as refugees; the others are considered "migrants" even if they are attempting to move in order to be able to afford to care for the basic needs of their families.
The first topic is that of whether the border solves the violence or creates it, an interesting thought exercise. Then Jones examines particular borders and recent events - Europe, the Middle East, Africa. The trouble with refugee quotas when more people are trying to leave.
Then there are sections on the history of borders, how borders impact climate, the militarization of police (and particularly, of border patrols, in fact treating a border like a war zone), and wage/rights/protection disparity.
I even had my thinking pushed on national parks, a somewhat arbitrary topic shoved in near the end that has bugged me ever since. (How did we set up pristine protected areas without letting native populations still have access to them?)
The solution Jones suggests starts with opening borders and allowing for free movement, even and especially of the poor. But not a lot of ramifications of doing so is considered. I'd like to see this book and scholarship in dialogue with people who think differently from Jones because it is compelling but one-sided.
Still a great read to start off my year of reading in the borders!
The book is very well researched and includes very recent data about refugees, immigrants, asylum, income, etc. It is clear, and we can all agree, that we have an uptick on people moving between places. Refugees are a narrow group of those people - according to the UN only those fleeing for persecution or conflict can count as refugees; the others are considered "migrants" even if they are attempting to move in order to be able to afford to care for the basic needs of their families.
The first topic is that of whether the border solves the violence or creates it, an interesting thought exercise. Then Jones examines particular borders and recent events - Europe, the Middle East, Africa. The trouble with refugee quotas when more people are trying to leave.
Then there are sections on the history of borders, how borders impact climate, the militarization of police (and particularly, of border patrols, in fact treating a border like a war zone), and wage/rights/protection disparity.
I even had my thinking pushed on national parks, a somewhat arbitrary topic shoved in near the end that has bugged me ever since. (How did we set up pristine protected areas without letting native populations still have access to them?)
The solution Jones suggests starts with opening borders and allowing for free movement, even and especially of the poor. But not a lot of ramifications of doing so is considered. I'd like to see this book and scholarship in dialogue with people who think differently from Jones because it is compelling but one-sided.
Still a great read to start off my year of reading in the borders!
March 25, 2019
The Shame of Our Time
For God sake pick up this book.
I purchased this as a secondary companion to another read from Verso books, as the publisher offered free shipping to orders over £10. In other words, despite being very interested in this topic, it was ultimately a side thought to something more salient on my mind.* However, as it stands, I think I found Violent Borders a far more enlightening, thought provoking, and challenging read than my originally desired text. I mean this as no disrespect to the other author, the topics are seperete in nature (debatable), but the scale of what Reece Jones tackles here is slightly mind boggling considered this books slim 180 page size.
What Jones has created is a book that introduces - unexpectedly - some very pertinent ideas that most Anarchist thinkers have been analysing for some time. To clarify, this is NOT an Anarchist book, the word, and various movements associated with it, aren't even mentioned once throughout Violent Borders. Which, as a result, makes this a fantastic book for anyone to read, as Jones keeps from wallowing into an ideological swamp.
By challenging the very notion of WHY we have borders, Jones, in turn, has to question the notion of the Nation State as an existing structure. Which, in turn once more, leads him to challenge the very fabric of the institutions, and societies we have built, and live in, within the Nation State itself. Furthermore, he considers, through respectfully placed chapters, the history of how borders came to be; how The Nation State came to be; how people have been divided into artificial and separated communities; and their way of living beforehand being comprised of many different cultures and tribes (Africa - don't even go there).
Jones does this by delivering first person accounts of the awful experiences refugees at borders go through, analysing the history of Nation border building (colonialism, imperialism), and how far down the rabbit hole we've taken these imaginary lines by dividing and vacuuming our oceans of resources (as just one example), and creating an "Us" and "Them" dynamic that has allowed borders to harden in the face of human movement. Ironically, these were created by the very ideology that makes borders possible in the first place - I did say this book goes places - further adding to the madness.
Not only this, but Jones even lays a smackdown on the UN and the useless authority built into it's structure which pretty much allows States to do what they want within their own borders.
Jones opens a pure Pandoras box of crazy in this book, and it does what so many books set out to do, and fail miserably sometimes; it makes you think.
See quote:
* For anyone interested, the book was Alt-America by David Neiwert (great read, pick it up).
For God sake pick up this book.
I purchased this as a secondary companion to another read from Verso books, as the publisher offered free shipping to orders over £10. In other words, despite being very interested in this topic, it was ultimately a side thought to something more salient on my mind.* However, as it stands, I think I found Violent Borders a far more enlightening, thought provoking, and challenging read than my originally desired text. I mean this as no disrespect to the other author, the topics are seperete in nature (debatable), but the scale of what Reece Jones tackles here is slightly mind boggling considered this books slim 180 page size.
What Jones has created is a book that introduces - unexpectedly - some very pertinent ideas that most Anarchist thinkers have been analysing for some time. To clarify, this is NOT an Anarchist book, the word, and various movements associated with it, aren't even mentioned once throughout Violent Borders. Which, as a result, makes this a fantastic book for anyone to read, as Jones keeps from wallowing into an ideological swamp.
By challenging the very notion of WHY we have borders, Jones, in turn, has to question the notion of the Nation State as an existing structure. Which, in turn once more, leads him to challenge the very fabric of the institutions, and societies we have built, and live in, within the Nation State itself. Furthermore, he considers, through respectfully placed chapters, the history of how borders came to be; how The Nation State came to be; how people have been divided into artificial and separated communities; and their way of living beforehand being comprised of many different cultures and tribes (Africa - don't even go there).
Jones does this by delivering first person accounts of the awful experiences refugees at borders go through, analysing the history of Nation border building (colonialism, imperialism), and how far down the rabbit hole we've taken these imaginary lines by dividing and vacuuming our oceans of resources (as just one example), and creating an "Us" and "Them" dynamic that has allowed borders to harden in the face of human movement. Ironically, these were created by the very ideology that makes borders possible in the first place - I did say this book goes places - further adding to the madness.
Not only this, but Jones even lays a smackdown on the UN and the useless authority built into it's structure which pretty much allows States to do what they want within their own borders.
Jones opens a pure Pandoras box of crazy in this book, and it does what so many books set out to do, and fail miserably sometimes; it makes you think.
See quote:
"These responses to migration draw on fantasies of national purity and a fear of change that is exploited by politicians. The exclusion of others from resources and opportunity is based on the idea that the in-group should be protected no matter what, with little regard for what effect it might have on the other and without questioning why there is a distinction between “us” and “them” in the first place. Rather than hard lines around nations of people and their homelands, political borders are systems for controlling land and resources and limiting the movement of people. The “nations” they enclose are not long-term historical realities, but new political communities that developed with the emergence of states and borders. In Foucault’s terms, maps of bordered territorial states are regimes of truth that establish what is true and legitimate in society. They justify some claims to land and history, while marking others as false and not worthy of consideration. These regimes are not fundamental truths that are universal; they are set of agreements within a particular society that establish a set of rules to decide what is true, but it does not have to be that way."
* For anyone interested, the book was Alt-America by David Neiwert (great read, pick it up).
August 2, 2018
Isn’t it awful to see all those poor migrants dying at our borders? The trouble is that their deaths are the intended, not accidental but intended outcome of policy decisions made in Europe, the US and elsewhere. Governments have forced migrants to use the most dangerous routes and thrown them on the mercies of people traffickers with the explicit objective of discouraging migration by making it brutally dangerous. To put these violent policies into effect, our governments have invested in vast security arrangements that were somehow not necessary as recently as the early 1990s. They get pretty cross with misguided philanthropists who think it might be okay to save the lives of some migrants, whether in the deserts of New Mexico or the waters of the Mediterranean.
The International Organization for Migration suggests that “the relatively low number of migrant deaths before 1990 may be related to the fact that it used to be much easier to reach Europe by regular means, even in the absence of official government authorization to immigrate.” Prior to 1974, for example, France allowed migrants to come and go freely. Spain allowed North Africans to enter freely until 1991... The results are predictable: leaking ships, navigational errors, broken motors, and not enough fuel, all of which leads to hypothermia, heat stroke, starvation, and drowning. Frontex has estimated that one out of every four people who attempt to enter Europe by boat dies en route... [p38]
There is nothing new about migration, nor about the contrasting conditions in which the poor travel compared with the wealthy. During the great nineteenth-century migration, millions of European migrants faced similar economic hardships and made their way to new homes in search of better opportunities for their families in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States... [p40]
The Irish Potato Famine was at its height in 1848, and there were so many immigrants that year that many different types of ships were used; they became known as “coffin ships” because so many people died on the way. ... Thirty million migrants from Europe travelled to the United States from 1815 to 1915. Between 1851 and 1861, 600,000 migrants arrived in Australia. [p85]
Mass migration continued throughout the 20th century and has never ceased; it is not new, it is not uncommon and it is not especially different. Free movement within the EU has been established [with reservations] in exchange for strengthened borders around the EU but the principle is the same. What has changed is that, all of a sudden, it seems the preferred way to manage things is to invest in a huge border security apparatus, beyond the scale of anything required in the past. For instance:
The leaders of countries around the world pursued similar policies in 2016 and 2017... New border walls were initiated in Algeria, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, India, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom in Calais, France. Even Norway built a border wall in 2016. [p8]
Nowhere is the transformation more stunning that the Southern USA. From a low profile and lightly funded border patrol, there was a move to harden borders in the 1990s followed by dramatic escalation after 9/11, to the point where ...in 2012 the US government spent $18 billion on immigration policing, with the largest amounts for the Border Patrol, Customs, and the Transportation Security Administration—more than the amount spent on all other federal law enforcement combined, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation ($8 billion), the Drug Enforcement Administration ($2.88 billion), the Secret Service ($1 billion), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ($1 billion). Homeland Security Research, an industry analysis firm, estimates that the homeland security industry will be worth an astounding $107.3 billion by 2020. [p48]
Hard borders divert migrants into the hands of traffickers and into the most dangerous ways to travel but they do nothing to halt the flow. This reality is captured in the powerful poem “Home” by British Somali poet Warsan Shire: you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land... [p37] https://genius.com/Warsan-shire-home-...
If borders are this important, then what purpose do they serve? Regardless of rhetoric about international terrorism, for which the evidence is trivial, border security is almost exclusively targeted against vulnerable individuals and families in great poverty. Borders do not hinder migration or travel for business and pleasure among the more affluent, regardless of the frequently corrupt or criminal or violent source of their affluence and the rhetoric of globalisation (if not the reality) is entirely committed to creating a single global market for capital and goods. The idea that border security is for the benefit of the general mass of the population even within those borders is unsustainable on the evidence. Massively expensive, militarized security apparatus that undermines democratic accountability and also rides roughshod over environmental concerns are outrageously at odds with any sane assessment of the public interest.
...the traditional distinctions between military/police, war/law enforcement, and internal/external security are rapidly blurring,” a process that accelerated dramatically in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The underlying logic of protecting sovereignty is increasingly clear as police and military combine into a single security state... [p51]
The author locates the issue of borders at the heart of capitalism through the concept of enclosure. This term (contrary to the suggestion of other reviewers, it is not an especially Marxist explanation) refers to a process by which land and resources which are not owned at all, but rather available for shared access to whole communities or the people at large, were transferred into private ownership, dispossessing and impoverishing entire communities in Britain and then beyond. The chieftains of Scottish highland clans were suddenly advised that the land they were entrusted to supervise for the good of the clan was, instead, to be their personal property, and the clans whose living depended on that land were dispersed in great “clearances”. Across Britain growing numbers of landless rural poor were driven abroad to the colonies and ultimately into the newly forming industrial cities. The seizure of land across Ireland was a violent trial run of the principles on which land across North America was forcefully transferred into private ownership and then, over time, concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. By the 19th Century people in England were being hanged or transported for having the temerity to catch a wild rabbit or a fish or to take wood for the fire.
In other words, the process of enclosing land is entirely concerned with the escalating exploitation of natural resources, the concentration of wealth in fewer hands and the exclusion and impoverishment of the masses of the population. Even the oceans are now largely enclosed through international treaties, again to facilitate commercial exploitation for private gain. And the concept of enclosure can be extended to describe the transfer of ownership for publicly owned assets from governments to shareholders. Capitalism is absolutely committed to evade recognition of public, collective or shared ownership and collective rights, even in the case of public assets that are the product of generations of public investment from general taxation. It is as though the embezzlement of public land and assets is a victimless crime. This is not the case of course, since the victims are visible by their poverty and their vulnerability to exploitation and to extreme violence, not least when they encounter the arbitrary and unjustifiable border security apparatus which the wealthy have been imposing around the globe without informed or effective scrutiny.
To get a handle on just how normal to human society and history is the migration of people in large numbers really calls for a lot more material than this book attempts and I am not sure where this has been published in an accessible volume. I have just looked over some of the other books I have reviewed on Goodreads where relevant issues were covered. This book does not dwell in detail on the huge forced movements of people in their millions within Europe throughout the 20th Century, arising from the evolution of ethnic nationalism. I have not really encountered a clear exposition of those population movements, but (from memory) they do at least feature as a recurring theme in War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century by Domenico Losurdo. An especially relevant account of the population movements between Southern Europe and North Africa is given in The French Intifada by Andrew Hussey: the reason so many North Africans moved into France is because so many Europeans took their own land away from them. Another book, Politically Incorrect: Why a Jewish State Is a Bad Idea by Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, explains in detail the close connection of immigration patterns with capitalist requirements for the right types of human resources, a recurring theme in all debates on migration. An interesting perspective on the need to balance concern for the settled population with concern for migrants across the vast territories of the Ottoman Empire is in A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees(Studies in Modernity and National Identity) by Reşat Kasaba, which points out that for all the everlasting aggravation between settled and migrant peoples, migrants have always been economically as well as socially essential and a society failing to manage this interaction well will not prosper. The mad thing to notice in the latter book is that migrants have always travelled through these territories in large numbers and to Ottoman administrators this was seen to be frequently beneficial – what has changed is the imposition of violent borders across their paths.
This list of my reading does not even scratch the surface of what needs to be described in order to get through people’s dull skulls the reality that it is normal for people to migrate, it is common for them to do so in large numbers, and the challenge is to find ways of managing this normal process rather than taking the side of the most introverted and incestuous of settled communities and vilify everyone who is not local. I don’t think this particular book was successful in capturing the full argument but it is a very effective introduction to the relevant debates and I am not sure where, if at all, the story has been better told.
The International Organization for Migration suggests that “the relatively low number of migrant deaths before 1990 may be related to the fact that it used to be much easier to reach Europe by regular means, even in the absence of official government authorization to immigrate.” Prior to 1974, for example, France allowed migrants to come and go freely. Spain allowed North Africans to enter freely until 1991... The results are predictable: leaking ships, navigational errors, broken motors, and not enough fuel, all of which leads to hypothermia, heat stroke, starvation, and drowning. Frontex has estimated that one out of every four people who attempt to enter Europe by boat dies en route... [p38]
There is nothing new about migration, nor about the contrasting conditions in which the poor travel compared with the wealthy. During the great nineteenth-century migration, millions of European migrants faced similar economic hardships and made their way to new homes in search of better opportunities for their families in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States... [p40]
The Irish Potato Famine was at its height in 1848, and there were so many immigrants that year that many different types of ships were used; they became known as “coffin ships” because so many people died on the way. ... Thirty million migrants from Europe travelled to the United States from 1815 to 1915. Between 1851 and 1861, 600,000 migrants arrived in Australia. [p85]
Mass migration continued throughout the 20th century and has never ceased; it is not new, it is not uncommon and it is not especially different. Free movement within the EU has been established [with reservations] in exchange for strengthened borders around the EU but the principle is the same. What has changed is that, all of a sudden, it seems the preferred way to manage things is to invest in a huge border security apparatus, beyond the scale of anything required in the past. For instance:
The leaders of countries around the world pursued similar policies in 2016 and 2017... New border walls were initiated in Algeria, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, India, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom in Calais, France. Even Norway built a border wall in 2016. [p8]
Nowhere is the transformation more stunning that the Southern USA. From a low profile and lightly funded border patrol, there was a move to harden borders in the 1990s followed by dramatic escalation after 9/11, to the point where ...in 2012 the US government spent $18 billion on immigration policing, with the largest amounts for the Border Patrol, Customs, and the Transportation Security Administration—more than the amount spent on all other federal law enforcement combined, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation ($8 billion), the Drug Enforcement Administration ($2.88 billion), the Secret Service ($1 billion), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ($1 billion). Homeland Security Research, an industry analysis firm, estimates that the homeland security industry will be worth an astounding $107.3 billion by 2020. [p48]
Hard borders divert migrants into the hands of traffickers and into the most dangerous ways to travel but they do nothing to halt the flow. This reality is captured in the powerful poem “Home” by British Somali poet Warsan Shire: you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land... [p37] https://genius.com/Warsan-shire-home-...
If borders are this important, then what purpose do they serve? Regardless of rhetoric about international terrorism, for which the evidence is trivial, border security is almost exclusively targeted against vulnerable individuals and families in great poverty. Borders do not hinder migration or travel for business and pleasure among the more affluent, regardless of the frequently corrupt or criminal or violent source of their affluence and the rhetoric of globalisation (if not the reality) is entirely committed to creating a single global market for capital and goods. The idea that border security is for the benefit of the general mass of the population even within those borders is unsustainable on the evidence. Massively expensive, militarized security apparatus that undermines democratic accountability and also rides roughshod over environmental concerns are outrageously at odds with any sane assessment of the public interest.
...the traditional distinctions between military/police, war/law enforcement, and internal/external security are rapidly blurring,” a process that accelerated dramatically in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The underlying logic of protecting sovereignty is increasingly clear as police and military combine into a single security state... [p51]
The author locates the issue of borders at the heart of capitalism through the concept of enclosure. This term (contrary to the suggestion of other reviewers, it is not an especially Marxist explanation) refers to a process by which land and resources which are not owned at all, but rather available for shared access to whole communities or the people at large, were transferred into private ownership, dispossessing and impoverishing entire communities in Britain and then beyond. The chieftains of Scottish highland clans were suddenly advised that the land they were entrusted to supervise for the good of the clan was, instead, to be their personal property, and the clans whose living depended on that land were dispersed in great “clearances”. Across Britain growing numbers of landless rural poor were driven abroad to the colonies and ultimately into the newly forming industrial cities. The seizure of land across Ireland was a violent trial run of the principles on which land across North America was forcefully transferred into private ownership and then, over time, concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. By the 19th Century people in England were being hanged or transported for having the temerity to catch a wild rabbit or a fish or to take wood for the fire.
In other words, the process of enclosing land is entirely concerned with the escalating exploitation of natural resources, the concentration of wealth in fewer hands and the exclusion and impoverishment of the masses of the population. Even the oceans are now largely enclosed through international treaties, again to facilitate commercial exploitation for private gain. And the concept of enclosure can be extended to describe the transfer of ownership for publicly owned assets from governments to shareholders. Capitalism is absolutely committed to evade recognition of public, collective or shared ownership and collective rights, even in the case of public assets that are the product of generations of public investment from general taxation. It is as though the embezzlement of public land and assets is a victimless crime. This is not the case of course, since the victims are visible by their poverty and their vulnerability to exploitation and to extreme violence, not least when they encounter the arbitrary and unjustifiable border security apparatus which the wealthy have been imposing around the globe without informed or effective scrutiny.
To get a handle on just how normal to human society and history is the migration of people in large numbers really calls for a lot more material than this book attempts and I am not sure where this has been published in an accessible volume. I have just looked over some of the other books I have reviewed on Goodreads where relevant issues were covered. This book does not dwell in detail on the huge forced movements of people in their millions within Europe throughout the 20th Century, arising from the evolution of ethnic nationalism. I have not really encountered a clear exposition of those population movements, but (from memory) they do at least feature as a recurring theme in War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century by Domenico Losurdo. An especially relevant account of the population movements between Southern Europe and North Africa is given in The French Intifada by Andrew Hussey: the reason so many North Africans moved into France is because so many Europeans took their own land away from them. Another book, Politically Incorrect: Why a Jewish State Is a Bad Idea by Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, explains in detail the close connection of immigration patterns with capitalist requirements for the right types of human resources, a recurring theme in all debates on migration. An interesting perspective on the need to balance concern for the settled population with concern for migrants across the vast territories of the Ottoman Empire is in A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees(Studies in Modernity and National Identity) by Reşat Kasaba, which points out that for all the everlasting aggravation between settled and migrant peoples, migrants have always been economically as well as socially essential and a society failing to manage this interaction well will not prosper. The mad thing to notice in the latter book is that migrants have always travelled through these territories in large numbers and to Ottoman administrators this was seen to be frequently beneficial – what has changed is the imposition of violent borders across their paths.
This list of my reading does not even scratch the surface of what needs to be described in order to get through people’s dull skulls the reality that it is normal for people to migrate, it is common for them to do so in large numbers, and the challenge is to find ways of managing this normal process rather than taking the side of the most introverted and incestuous of settled communities and vilify everyone who is not local. I don’t think this particular book was successful in capturing the full argument but it is a very effective introduction to the relevant debates and I am not sure where, if at all, the story has been better told.
April 24, 2025
I am bad at reading non-fiction in book form, and I often wonder who, precisely, non-fiction is aimed at – those who already know a fair bit, or those who don’t?
This particular book seemed to be aimed at me. It took a topic I am familiar with from many, many articles, and yet am woefully ill-informed about the details of, and provided enough information to make me feel less woefully ill-informed, without clobbering me with theory or too much digression. I finally took this off the shelf after reading the philosophical novel Small Boat, which deals with the nature of borders and blame.
Maps of the modern sovereign state system institutionalized the notion that people fit neatly into categories, these categories fit neatly into homelands, and these homelands unambiguously should determine each individual’s fate on earth.
To some extent, this book is a history of borders that uses the modern refugee crises as a frame. The opening chapters set the scene, covering border hotspots in the European Union, the U.S./Mexico border, and various other pain points (Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Australia). These are the stories we have all lived with, increasingly, for the past several decades, pictures of dead children on beaches, accounts of migrants from Latin America or Africa perishing in desert crossings, checkpoints, boats pushed back.
The next several chapters expand the canvas to contextualize borders, and also crucially human movement, in time. The discussion of the Global Poor contrasts today’s migrants, to all intents and purposes not welcome anywhere, with the great European migrations of the 19th century, who went to make their fortunes in the Americas. Chapter 5, on “Enclosing the Commons and Bounding the Seas,” dispenses momentarily with country borders to consider the issue of private property at all via the Enclosure movement in the British Isles, which privatized most public land and eventually pushed the rural poor into becoming the urban poor. Chapter 6 considers globalization and the freeing of movement of goods and money, in contrast to the still violently obstructed movement of people, and Chapter 7 looks to the environment.
Quoting Tim Cresswell, Jones writes: “Mobility is central to what it is to be modern. A modern citizen is, among other things, a mobile citizen. At the same time it is equally clear that mobility has been the object of fear and suspicion, a human practice that threatens to undermine many of the achievements of modern rationality.”
The Conclusion is titled “Movement as a political act,” although this book isn’t entirely the rallying cry for the elimination of borders I was probably expecting. Jones certainly calls for a shake-up in our conception of borders, but the scenarios going forward were sketches, rather than plans.
The system of states, borders and resource enclosures is embedded in our culture and our way of life and permeates many aspects of our existence, to the point that it is difficult to imagine life outside of it. But that past two hundred years have included major social changes that were previously unthinkable as people have collectively resisted injustices in the world, including slavery, colonialism, lack of universal suffrage, and South Africa’s apartheid system. Today we take it for granted that these practices were unjust and it was only a matter of time before they collapsed, although at one point change seemed impossible.
Ultimately, it was a book that still left me with some questions, rather than all answers, but I appreciated the overview – political, historical, economic and environmental – of the issue.
This particular book seemed to be aimed at me. It took a topic I am familiar with from many, many articles, and yet am woefully ill-informed about the details of, and provided enough information to make me feel less woefully ill-informed, without clobbering me with theory or too much digression. I finally took this off the shelf after reading the philosophical novel Small Boat, which deals with the nature of borders and blame.
Maps of the modern sovereign state system institutionalized the notion that people fit neatly into categories, these categories fit neatly into homelands, and these homelands unambiguously should determine each individual’s fate on earth.
To some extent, this book is a history of borders that uses the modern refugee crises as a frame. The opening chapters set the scene, covering border hotspots in the European Union, the U.S./Mexico border, and various other pain points (Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, Australia). These are the stories we have all lived with, increasingly, for the past several decades, pictures of dead children on beaches, accounts of migrants from Latin America or Africa perishing in desert crossings, checkpoints, boats pushed back.
The next several chapters expand the canvas to contextualize borders, and also crucially human movement, in time. The discussion of the Global Poor contrasts today’s migrants, to all intents and purposes not welcome anywhere, with the great European migrations of the 19th century, who went to make their fortunes in the Americas. Chapter 5, on “Enclosing the Commons and Bounding the Seas,” dispenses momentarily with country borders to consider the issue of private property at all via the Enclosure movement in the British Isles, which privatized most public land and eventually pushed the rural poor into becoming the urban poor. Chapter 6 considers globalization and the freeing of movement of goods and money, in contrast to the still violently obstructed movement of people, and Chapter 7 looks to the environment.
Quoting Tim Cresswell, Jones writes: “Mobility is central to what it is to be modern. A modern citizen is, among other things, a mobile citizen. At the same time it is equally clear that mobility has been the object of fear and suspicion, a human practice that threatens to undermine many of the achievements of modern rationality.”
The Conclusion is titled “Movement as a political act,” although this book isn’t entirely the rallying cry for the elimination of borders I was probably expecting. Jones certainly calls for a shake-up in our conception of borders, but the scenarios going forward were sketches, rather than plans.
The system of states, borders and resource enclosures is embedded in our culture and our way of life and permeates many aspects of our existence, to the point that it is difficult to imagine life outside of it. But that past two hundred years have included major social changes that were previously unthinkable as people have collectively resisted injustices in the world, including slavery, colonialism, lack of universal suffrage, and South Africa’s apartheid system. Today we take it for granted that these practices were unjust and it was only a matter of time before they collapsed, although at one point change seemed impossible.
Ultimately, it was a book that still left me with some questions, rather than all answers, but I appreciated the overview – political, historical, economic and environmental – of the issue.
August 9, 2018
The author makes the point that borders should be removed for variety of reasons: mainly to ensure human economic rights and equality of opportunities (with decent pay, decent working and living conditions) and to prevent climatic change more effectively. Borders serve the interests of corporations, but not poeple - there is a lot of vested interest to preserve borders from the point of view of the top few percent, whereas they are not beneficial to everybody else (the vast majority). He argues that the fear of the "deluge" of migrants from the "other cultures" is ungrounded by exemplifying the situation in the European Union once new member (Eastern Europeans) joined the project; the old members were afraid of the "tsunami" of immigrants from those countries, whereas in fact, nothing dramatic took place. Open borders, in his view, would enforce a more egalitarial market - the dicrepancies between pay in different parts of the world would gradually diminish and working conditions would be improving.
When it comes to the environment, there is a need for a closer cooperation and he claims that an institituion with a power to override state authority is needed. If the measures are left to the intenral control of states, they are not likely to reduce carbon emissions or take other necessary steps if they affect businesses negatively, and thus the environmental situation is not getting better. Pollution does cross borders, hence, a global effort must be undertaken.
The ending offers ideas what to do - closer global coopertaion and aiming at removing borders (which he convincingly argues against), but no nuanced solutions are offered or tips how to implement those changes.
When it comes to the environment, there is a need for a closer cooperation and he claims that an institituion with a power to override state authority is needed. If the measures are left to the intenral control of states, they are not likely to reduce carbon emissions or take other necessary steps if they affect businesses negatively, and thus the environmental situation is not getting better. Pollution does cross borders, hence, a global effort must be undertaken.
The ending offers ideas what to do - closer global coopertaion and aiming at removing borders (which he convincingly argues against), but no nuanced solutions are offered or tips how to implement those changes.
February 2, 2017
On the back of my copy of Violent Borders Vijay Prashid is quoted as saying "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". Well I'm sorry but I have to disagree. I don't know anyone with a 'go back to where you came from' mentaility who would finish this book (and I know a lot of people in this group).
The big pro about this book is the large number of facts and historical references regarding migration. However, the con with all of these facts is how they are connected together. The book jumps around making it difficult to keep on track with the argument being made. While all points being referenced are relevant and interesting by themselves, swapping from period England to a modern day third world country is difficult to keep up with.
Overall the main reason I believe this book doesn't live up to the above mentioned statement is because in my opinion the main cause of anti-migration sentiment is fear. Either fear of change or fear of someone being different. This book doesn't make the migration issue anymore real, in fact the constant stream of odd facts de-humanises the lives of these people even more.
The big pro about this book is the large number of facts and historical references regarding migration. However, the con with all of these facts is how they are connected together. The book jumps around making it difficult to keep on track with the argument being made. While all points being referenced are relevant and interesting by themselves, swapping from period England to a modern day third world country is difficult to keep up with.
Overall the main reason I believe this book doesn't live up to the above mentioned statement is because in my opinion the main cause of anti-migration sentiment is fear. Either fear of change or fear of someone being different. This book doesn't make the migration issue anymore real, in fact the constant stream of odd facts de-humanises the lives of these people even more.
January 6, 2017
This book does a great job at giving an overview about what is wrong with the militarisation of borders and the history of the concept of state border itself - but really does not deliver when it comes to suggesting an alternative. I am intrigued by her idea of abandoning state borders but she doesn't give any good arguments besides "the way it is now is not working". Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that the other end of the extreme is necessarily the right way to go, either. I was thinking the book was going to deliver some arguments and then suddenly I was already at the last page.
Oh well, this is still a good and interesting book and a not a bad one as an introduction to the topic.
Oh well, this is still a good and interesting book and a not a bad one as an introduction to the topic.
April 11, 2020
clearly articulated argument describing the direct and structural violence inherent in the borders walling of states, with a bold prescription of allowing free movement of people. Although the book’s subtitle references “refugees,” that description is too narrow (conceptually and legally) for the argument the author is actually making, which implicates migrants compelled to move for any variety of reasons - economic, ecological, or protection-related. Really good stuff.
July 28, 2018
Abolish borders. Have global environmental standards, global minimum wage, workers protection and above all, freedom of movement!
Great read, this book
Great read, this book
April 27, 2025
Reese Jones delivers a compelling argument for a global open border policy. The most intriguing of her points being the name sake of the book: is violence at the border caused by migrants, or the border itself? She also investigates climate violence caused by militarized borders, and the positive economic effect an open border policy would have on the global poor.
My biggest critique of the book is that zero consideration is given to views contrary to her own. I can always find these positions elsewhere, but it feels lazy to not acknowledge them to any degree. While I lean strongly in the direction of her beliefs, no great argument is made without an understanding of the other side (lots of the other side was labeled as racist which isn’t entirely untrue but is not exactly representative either).
The narrative of her argument diverts into an angry monologue on a few occasions but overall Violent Borders is a digestible read.
3.5/5
My biggest critique of the book is that zero consideration is given to views contrary to her own. I can always find these positions elsewhere, but it feels lazy to not acknowledge them to any degree. While I lean strongly in the direction of her beliefs, no great argument is made without an understanding of the other side (lots of the other side was labeled as racist which isn’t entirely untrue but is not exactly representative either).
The narrative of her argument diverts into an angry monologue on a few occasions but overall Violent Borders is a digestible read.
3.5/5
September 25, 2019
Impressive. Before I started this book I thought it would be about present-day migration from Africa and the Middle-East to Europe and from Latin-America to the USA. Of course that gets mentioned, but there are many more migrations taking place even today and this book goes also back in time to other migrations and to limitations imposed on the freedom of movement. It started when our ancestors went from being hunter-gatherers to farmers and with that came the need for fences. Much later there is the tragedy of the commons, the Midland revolt with Captain Pouch, etc and the increasing limitations on the freedom of movement and settlement.
The author's solutions are leftist, but at least it will get you to start thinking, because there is so much more to migration than the images of those "poor sods" trying to get into fortress Europe.
The author's solutions are leftist, but at least it will get you to start thinking, because there is so much more to migration than the images of those "poor sods" trying to get into fortress Europe.
March 23, 2019
This is an important and insightful exploration of the history and context surrounding the worldwide immigration crisis – and the role newly militarized borders play in exacerbating it.
No doubt, Violent Borders approaches this topic from a decidedly leftist standpoint, but it is less interested in bomb-throwing than in analysis of how we got here. Particularly insightful and thought-provoking is Jones' argument that the current crisis is provoked by two fairly recent developments: the militarization of borders to prevent the movement of the poor, yes, but also the removal of barriers to global capital – which means that companies can race to the bottom to find the cheapest labor force and laxest regulations, but that workers themselves cannot move to find better conditions for their labor. This imbalance drives massive inequality and crisis at the borders as workers become desperate enough to challenge the states with minimum-wage and worker-safety laws who refuse them entry, often at the point of a gun.
That said, I would have enjoyed more interaction with the arguments of non-racist immigration restrictionists, or even a deeper grappling with the deep resonance people have with the notion of borders and nation-states, even if they tend to be the result of historical or geographical accidents. Jones seems more comfortable diagnosing the problem than proposing specific solutions (as opposed to broad contours) to it – which is fine. Diagnosis is very important, after all, and the incisive statement of problems can itself be the spark for others to come up with the solutions those problems demand.
Here's hoping that Violent Borders provides that spark to changing both our broken immigration and economic systems to better reflect humanity and compassion.
No doubt, Violent Borders approaches this topic from a decidedly leftist standpoint, but it is less interested in bomb-throwing than in analysis of how we got here. Particularly insightful and thought-provoking is Jones' argument that the current crisis is provoked by two fairly recent developments: the militarization of borders to prevent the movement of the poor, yes, but also the removal of barriers to global capital – which means that companies can race to the bottom to find the cheapest labor force and laxest regulations, but that workers themselves cannot move to find better conditions for their labor. This imbalance drives massive inequality and crisis at the borders as workers become desperate enough to challenge the states with minimum-wage and worker-safety laws who refuse them entry, often at the point of a gun.
That said, I would have enjoyed more interaction with the arguments of non-racist immigration restrictionists, or even a deeper grappling with the deep resonance people have with the notion of borders and nation-states, even if they tend to be the result of historical or geographical accidents. Jones seems more comfortable diagnosing the problem than proposing specific solutions (as opposed to broad contours) to it – which is fine. Diagnosis is very important, after all, and the incisive statement of problems can itself be the spark for others to come up with the solutions those problems demand.
Here's hoping that Violent Borders provides that spark to changing both our broken immigration and economic systems to better reflect humanity and compassion.
December 13, 2016
I was really looking forward to this book, because: borders. But really found it wanting. I suppose Jones wanted to write a book similar to the stuff that James Scott, David Harvey and Stephen Graham put out. And who wouldn't? But the way Jones bounced from location to location without really explaining what he was doing and why.
This book may be really great for people at the undergraduate level and an introduction to challenging the very concept of borders. But once you realize that's what he's doing, he doesn't really explain why he shoots from medieval England to modern Bangladesh to talking workers' rights...the book just kind of expects you to follow along. What's more, I noticed a couple pretty bad factual errors that, while more adjacent to the story than necessary to the story (like, describing a Palestinian kid's soccer jersey by the advertiser on the front, not the team of the shirt) made it difficult to take the whole book seriously.
This is all a bummer, because it is an incredibly important thing to focus on and Reece Jones does great work. But I just wasn't a fan of how he put the book together and how soft-peddled the actual analysis was. If you want to read James Scott, just read James Scott.
This book may be really great for people at the undergraduate level and an introduction to challenging the very concept of borders. But once you realize that's what he's doing, he doesn't really explain why he shoots from medieval England to modern Bangladesh to talking workers' rights...the book just kind of expects you to follow along. What's more, I noticed a couple pretty bad factual errors that, while more adjacent to the story than necessary to the story (like, describing a Palestinian kid's soccer jersey by the advertiser on the front, not the team of the shirt) made it difficult to take the whole book seriously.
This is all a bummer, because it is an incredibly important thing to focus on and Reece Jones does great work. But I just wasn't a fan of how he put the book together and how soft-peddled the actual analysis was. If you want to read James Scott, just read James Scott.
March 21, 2019
Interesting book that deepens the understanding of the violence that borders create, both direct towards “illegal” immigrants, but also structurally on many levels (socioeconomic, environmental, etc.). I liked the way Jones used the lens of “Seeing like a state” of James Scott to analyze the raison d’être and the functions of borders, as means of control, exclusion, enclosure and exploitation.
Jones is convincing on the perverse effects borders have on our society, on various issues such as climate change, nature conservation, wages and working conditions in garment factories, and the history of migration and of territorial management by the state.
Throughout the book I was eager to read more on alternatives to borders and on how a world with less hard or even without borders could look like. These fascinating aspects are only treated in the conclusion of the book and deserve to be developed more.
Jones is convincing on the perverse effects borders have on our society, on various issues such as climate change, nature conservation, wages and working conditions in garment factories, and the history of migration and of territorial management by the state.
Throughout the book I was eager to read more on alternatives to borders and on how a world with less hard or even without borders could look like. These fascinating aspects are only treated in the conclusion of the book and deserve to be developed more.
April 3, 2021
Fascinating book that tracks the history of borders and the international system of state building. Unlike other books of this kind, it was clear, concise, and very informative.
He also makes the case that allowing capital to flow across the borders without allowing labor to do the same ultimately drives inequality as it incentivizes using the lowest denominator (lowest pay, worst labor conditions) rather than say the American work force that is unionized and requires worker protections.
I’d be interested to learn more about that specific phenomenon if he were to do a follow up book, but I suspect his particular interest may be more general with the coming migration crisis from climate change and growing authoritarianism.
He also makes the case that allowing capital to flow across the borders without allowing labor to do the same ultimately drives inequality as it incentivizes using the lowest denominator (lowest pay, worst labor conditions) rather than say the American work force that is unionized and requires worker protections.
I’d be interested to learn more about that specific phenomenon if he were to do a follow up book, but I suspect his particular interest may be more general with the coming migration crisis from climate change and growing authoritarianism.
July 8, 2018
This made me think about borders in a different way, and also gave me a lot of information I needed. I think we should all know more about the realities of immigration and the harsh and violent death toll it can take. This is sobering, but necessary.
December 5, 2018
Violent Borders is about the inherent violence of borders, how we've learned to take arbitrary boundaries for granted, and a picture of how the world could be without them. I'd recommend this to anyone pissed off about anti immigrant policy and ideology.
January 8, 2019
"This book disputes the idea that borders are a natural part of the human world and that migration is driven primarily by traffickers and smugglers. Instead, the existence of the border itself produces the violence that surrounds it. The border creates the economic and jurisdictional discontinuities that have come to be seen as its hallmarks, providing an impetus for the movement of people, goods, drugs, and weapon across it. The hardening of the border through new security practices is the source of the violence, not a response to it."
This book is necessary reading if you care even marginally about the increasingly desperate issue of violence that happens at borders. It's a well-researched, historically situated book that manages to do a lot in just 180 pages. Reece Jones is very careful to talk about the current epidemic happening at the borders as something that is the continuation and intensification of nationalism and the desire for the privileged to protect their wealth. When it comes to the movement of capital, of products especially of wealthier states, borders are pried open for their benefit even against the protest of locals. But when it comes to people, to labourers in search of better lives, and those fleeing violent conditions, borders are increasingly solid, hostile and even deadly.
"This is a collective, structural violence that deprives the poor of access to wealth and opportunities through the enclosure of resources and the bordering of states."
If people were to be able to move to seek a better life, who would be around to labour for $1.50 per hour in Bangladesh? The violence that happens at borders then is not a result of migrants or refugees, but by the increasing militarization and funding to its enforcement that allow for more punitive actions to be taken against migrants that had not existed before. There have been more deaths at borders in our current times than at any other time.
It was interesting to read parts where Reece historically traces how our relationship to land changes because of how borders got more and more prominent. The demarcation of borders even out at sea so that countries can have access to the oil reserves and other natural resources deep underground was the final frontier in enforcing borders on most of the globe.
I remember watching a short documentary about a man in India who singlehandedly saved a diminishing barren land by planting a tree on it every day. In 30 years a huge forest had already emerged and he continues to make the journey every day to plant new trees. My first thought was that this action could not be possible in countries such as mine where such areas would most certainly be sectioned off to be private property or the property of the government. As Reece describes it borders "..changed the relationship between people and the environment by redefining land and oceans as closed areas of ownership that can be exploited for economic gain, not common spaces to be shared or conserved. As individuals, corporations, and states gained ownership over land, the ability to make decisions on how to use the land shifted from a public to a private concern."
A final quote:
"Today almost all of the land in the world is claimed by states that possess the authority to use its resources and limit the movement of people. The boundaries that enclosed land into private property and established state sovereignty within territories and seas are treated as if they have always existed eternally, but even the oldest political borders are only a few hundred years old; most are only a few decades old. They are not the result of a transparent sorting of historical peoples into their own territories. Instead, borders are an efficient system for maintaining political control of an area through agreements and documents that are backed up with the threat of violence.
Although direct violence was used to impose these regulations, as the deaths at the end of the Midlands revolt attest, these enclosures are more clearly examples of the structural violence of borders. They changed the relationship between people and the environment by redefining land and oceans as closed areas of ownership that can be exploited for economic gain, not common spaces to be shared or conserved. As individuals, corporations, and states gained ownership over land, the ability to make decisions on how to use the land shifted from a public to a private concern.
The current violence at borders that targets migrants fleeing war and economic inequality in search of a better life is the latest stage in the long-term conflict between states and rulers–who control land and want to protect their rights to the wealth and opportunity captured there–and people who move in order to gain new opportunities or leave repressive conditions. The enclosure of common lands and the lack of coherence within many decolonized states often result in violence and war as control over the mechanisms of power are contested, as is currently occurring in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and South Sudan. The irony is that migrants from these disorderly artificial states, which are the remnants of European colonialism, are denied the right to move to Europe to escape the artificial boundaries Europe left behind."
This book is necessary reading if you care even marginally about the increasingly desperate issue of violence that happens at borders. It's a well-researched, historically situated book that manages to do a lot in just 180 pages. Reece Jones is very careful to talk about the current epidemic happening at the borders as something that is the continuation and intensification of nationalism and the desire for the privileged to protect their wealth. When it comes to the movement of capital, of products especially of wealthier states, borders are pried open for their benefit even against the protest of locals. But when it comes to people, to labourers in search of better lives, and those fleeing violent conditions, borders are increasingly solid, hostile and even deadly.
"This is a collective, structural violence that deprives the poor of access to wealth and opportunities through the enclosure of resources and the bordering of states."
If people were to be able to move to seek a better life, who would be around to labour for $1.50 per hour in Bangladesh? The violence that happens at borders then is not a result of migrants or refugees, but by the increasing militarization and funding to its enforcement that allow for more punitive actions to be taken against migrants that had not existed before. There have been more deaths at borders in our current times than at any other time.
It was interesting to read parts where Reece historically traces how our relationship to land changes because of how borders got more and more prominent. The demarcation of borders even out at sea so that countries can have access to the oil reserves and other natural resources deep underground was the final frontier in enforcing borders on most of the globe.
I remember watching a short documentary about a man in India who singlehandedly saved a diminishing barren land by planting a tree on it every day. In 30 years a huge forest had already emerged and he continues to make the journey every day to plant new trees. My first thought was that this action could not be possible in countries such as mine where such areas would most certainly be sectioned off to be private property or the property of the government. As Reece describes it borders "..changed the relationship between people and the environment by redefining land and oceans as closed areas of ownership that can be exploited for economic gain, not common spaces to be shared or conserved. As individuals, corporations, and states gained ownership over land, the ability to make decisions on how to use the land shifted from a public to a private concern."
A final quote:
"Today almost all of the land in the world is claimed by states that possess the authority to use its resources and limit the movement of people. The boundaries that enclosed land into private property and established state sovereignty within territories and seas are treated as if they have always existed eternally, but even the oldest political borders are only a few hundred years old; most are only a few decades old. They are not the result of a transparent sorting of historical peoples into their own territories. Instead, borders are an efficient system for maintaining political control of an area through agreements and documents that are backed up with the threat of violence.
Although direct violence was used to impose these regulations, as the deaths at the end of the Midlands revolt attest, these enclosures are more clearly examples of the structural violence of borders. They changed the relationship between people and the environment by redefining land and oceans as closed areas of ownership that can be exploited for economic gain, not common spaces to be shared or conserved. As individuals, corporations, and states gained ownership over land, the ability to make decisions on how to use the land shifted from a public to a private concern.
The current violence at borders that targets migrants fleeing war and economic inequality in search of a better life is the latest stage in the long-term conflict between states and rulers–who control land and want to protect their rights to the wealth and opportunity captured there–and people who move in order to gain new opportunities or leave repressive conditions. The enclosure of common lands and the lack of coherence within many decolonized states often result in violence and war as control over the mechanisms of power are contested, as is currently occurring in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and South Sudan. The irony is that migrants from these disorderly artificial states, which are the remnants of European colonialism, are denied the right to move to Europe to escape the artificial boundaries Europe left behind."
July 15, 2023
“the system of states, borders, and resource enclosures is embedded in our culture and our way of life and permeates many aspects of our existence, to the point that it is difficult to imagine life outside of it. but the past two hundred years have included major social changes that were previously unthinkable as people have collectively resisted injustices in the world, including slavery, colonialism, lack of universal suffrage, and south africa's apartheid system. today we take it for granted that these practices were unjust and it was only a matter of time before they collapsed, although at one point change seemed impossible. the current system of borders is no different.”
January 12, 2019
Everyone should read this book. Completely opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about borders and articulated so many concepts I had emotional responses to, but wanted words to be able to express to others. I could read this several times and take in new information. This book has opened my eyes to the world of radical geography. It’s a critical and exciting area of research and thought that I hope more people will become familiar with. I’m excited to read more in this area thanks to this book and the work of Simon Springer.
December 10, 2023
Really interesting read! There is much more to this book than meets the eye. It’s a powerful critique of the nation state, the structural violence of borders and the role of state sovereignty in the face of global environmental issues. He works to expose the inequality of the current global regime and questions a notion that we all take for granted: state borders. In a time where fear is used to ramp up border security, he shines a light on what the opposite could look like.
April 26, 2017
This book does a great job presenting the facts around migration and his argument against borders and exclusion in an easy-to-read format. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in thinking through the underlying foundations of our current "migration crisis."
March 26, 2021
Consisting partly of a journalistic reportage of the plights of migrants, partly of an exploration of the global consequences of the worldwide system of free movement of capital, and restrictions on human movement, and partly of a manifesto for a world with free movement and global equality, this book manifested the atrocities migrants face, often including death. written just before the election of Trump, it would however be interesting to see an updated version
August 21, 2022
MEGA SLAY 😍😍😍
November 23, 2020
There is a lot here! About how national borders are harmful. It really goes deep into the history of nations vs states, the history of borders. Maybe too much? Regardless it gave me three full meals of food for thought, that's for sure.
May 20, 2017
...Well, in general this is not a very optimistic or positive book. :-(
In fact, as Jones gets rolling with the various explanations and historic points that led us to where we are (globally), it can be quite deflating and really sad. Although Jones attempts to suggest solutions in the very last few pages of the book, by then it is really too little too late to leave you with any sort of optimistic outlook about the future of our world. The few utopian suggestions presented are worth consideration, though I wonder if Big Business will ever relinquish their stranglehold on the world's economies to allow for the improvements proposed.
I did appreciate the various topics addressed... from the inception of borders and boundaries to the unexpected ramifications of those borders over the centuries. The environmental chapter (Chapter 7) barely scratched the surface of the colossal issues; it at least tried to put into context the environmental impacts with all of the social and military influences that impact the creation of borders and border management.
This book is worth a read, but don't expect to go away with an optimistic outlook about our collective future.
In fact, as Jones gets rolling with the various explanations and historic points that led us to where we are (globally), it can be quite deflating and really sad. Although Jones attempts to suggest solutions in the very last few pages of the book, by then it is really too little too late to leave you with any sort of optimistic outlook about the future of our world. The few utopian suggestions presented are worth consideration, though I wonder if Big Business will ever relinquish their stranglehold on the world's economies to allow for the improvements proposed.
I did appreciate the various topics addressed... from the inception of borders and boundaries to the unexpected ramifications of those borders over the centuries. The environmental chapter (Chapter 7) barely scratched the surface of the colossal issues; it at least tried to put into context the environmental impacts with all of the social and military influences that impact the creation of borders and border management.
This book is worth a read, but don't expect to go away with an optimistic outlook about our collective future.
October 19, 2017
The author really really really wants to politicize the idea of borders, and I think he actually succeeded in making me rethink what borders are and theorize about what borders could and perhaps should be. Most of his arguments are openly Marxist and although that is definitely not a bad thing, he sometimes does fall into the pit of raging against the big and evil corporations who are up to no good and should be stopped. Then again, he also does a wonderful job in applying Marxist geography to border regimes in natural and quite accessible fashion.
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October 14, 2021this book is not very long but a bit of a drag. i was expecting more on migration and refugees and it kind of felt like a history book on borders (which is fine but not what i was looking for). also it is completely void of theory other than in the introduction and conclusion, which is a shame since when he does engage with theory it is really interesting. but then the book becomes just like a list of events without a particularly interesting perspective? the climate change chapter was the most unique/interesting
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