Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives

by Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Winner of the 2023 International Political Sociology Book Award

The seamy underside of humanitarianism

What does it mean when humanitarianism is the response to death, injury and suffering at the border? This book interrogates the politics of humanitarian responses to border violence and unequal mobility, arguing that such responses mask underlying injustices, depoliticise violent borders and bolster liberal and paternalist approaches to suffering.
 
Focusing on the diversity of actors involved in humanitarian assistance alongside the times and spaces of action, the book draws a direct line between privileges of movement and global inequalities of race, class, gender and disability rooted in colonial histories and white supremacy and humanitarian efforts that save lives while entrenching such inequalities.
 
Based on eight years of research with border police, European Union officials, professional humanitarians, and grassroots activists in Europe’s borderlands, including Italy and Greece, the book argues that this kind of saving lives builds, expands and deepens already restrictive borders and exclusive and exceptional identities through what the book calls humanitarian borderwork.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

224 pages, Paperback

Published June 14, 2022

Reviews

[Narges Anzali · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found myself increasingly frustrated by this book the longer it went on. While her analysis of humanitarianism and the privilege of mobility is certainly helpful, her discourse becomes increasingly circular. Life-saving efforts can reproduce systems of white supremacy and colonialism. Yet what happens when we remove them? And how do we adapt them? The book offers no solid opinions or analyses on these points. I find criticism without a broader vision frustrating--she says at the end of the book that she does not think it is her place or her motivation to offer a vision of the future--i would emphatically disagree.

The mobility politics that Pallister-Wilkins criticizes are incredibly important to dissect, and her analyses of the ways those unequal movements have been established for the post-colonial subject are helpful in informing the current global mobility politics, there are few solid conclusion reached. Given the work that I did this summer, the book echoed some of the dissatisfaction I was feeling. Humanitarian work often ultimately fails to address the instability behind the mobility inequality in the first place, and works within the state to achieve solutions that often require a buy-in to the state's ranked system of mobility possibilities. Moreover, much of immigration law actually does not require the mobility of the lawyers, as Pallister-Wilkins argues, as law is actually quite bound to locale.

The last section was perhaps least helpful of all, because of the generalities that start to become involved. I also find it frustrating where leftist books like this begin to ascribe what are generally called 'indigenous forms of thought' as the solution for every issue. It lacks both specificity and achievability--not to mention that it overgeneralizes the Global South's relationship with indigineity and movement as something that is universal rather than highly specific to place and culture.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! A must read for humanitarian workers. I loved this and really made me look at things differently, even though they were so "basic". Makes you realize how we've been brainwashed to think about borders, humanitarian aid, refugee camps etc.

[Julija Kekstaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential read for those grappling with paradoxes of humanitarianism and how it (re)produces (humanitarian) borders.

"How can humanitarianism - as a practice oriented around the human subject and intimately shaped by its colonial past and its relationship to whiteness - function as an ethical commitment to others?" (p. 181)

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid entry point for border and mobility studies. (Though for those completely new to the realm of postcolonial and intersectional theory may have a more difficult time – this is well and truly an academic sociology text, and having a working knowledge of these subjects makes the read less complicated.) A bit ham-fisted + redundant with certain ideas and arguments; nevertheless, still useful to see how the overarching thesis remains consistent throughout. Going to brain dump a little now because #paraphrasing helps #remember.


Famously, all roads lead to Scripps' Core I lecture "Histories of the Present" (specifically, the unit on borders) since this elaborated upon ideas of border construction, Western geopolitical hegemony, and surveillance. Borders themselves are mostly arbitrary, unless, say, a landmass is bisected by a river or mountain range, which would lend itself to a clear mark of delineation, but ultimately could lead to a tussle over resource ownership and thus the conflict supersedes the border itself and becomes concerned with what it entails in terms of capital + extraction. So fun to see how capitalism prevails.

So then we ask... why are these borders the ones that have been decided (extra credit if you can name a country other than England that has led some sort of division of land), and why do we defend them with such vigor? Such violent means? And with increasing surveillance and bureaucracy? Most relevant examples include Pakistan/India, Mexico/U.S., Palestine/Israel, Taiwan/China, Ukraine/Russia. And, most obviously, the entire slave trade out of Africa. Why can certain people move freely around the world while others may not even be able to leave their hometowns or home countries? What processes and structures prevent, or complicate, movement? Why are passports and visas so expensive, difficult to procure? And how do these procedures result in cohorts of people who choose riskier, potentially deadly paths to leave a place? Meant to "streamline," bureaucracy creates a separate unequal reality where those without access/resources must resort to shady, extrajudicial means, consequently necessitating humanitarianism responses to crises.

Anyway, I found Polly's idea of humanitarianism being a byproduct of racialized global capitalism compelling, mostly because she elucidated the more implicit streams of thought. It's like... why would we need to provide aid/help/resources to those who are being dispossessed - violently, environmentally, or otherwise? Because the reasons behind dispossession are often state-funded, and the state isn't interested in individuals or communities when capital is at stake. Then it falls to individuals, or grassroots groups, to pick up the slack, often running the risk of being censured or punished by the state. The feedback loop of disaster creation and mitigation is a tangled ouroboros. Put simply: "Heroic narratives of humanitarian risk taking, that anthropologist Adia Benton argues (re)produce racial hierarchies and white supremacy, animate grassroots initiatives as much as organised institutionalised interventions. Violent borders and unequal mobility are transversal, meaning territorial and state- and citizen-based responses that see humanitarian work happen ‘over there’ and politics happen ‘here’ can only ever relieve symptoms rather than effect substantive change."

[Harris Layson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book to originally research how borders were created as colonial structures to enforce racist policies of exclusion. This book made quite a few arguments, but It was very long and repetitive. Obviously, there is value in the specific histories provided in borders, but the larger conclusion of the book is so simple that it got a little boring. However, I still appreciate the different perspectives on open versus closed borders that provide the reader with something to weigh between via their own judgment.
I would like to focus on two particular perspectives that contradict each other within this book. First is the historical analysis of why borders were created to exclude people's movement from the Global South into the Global North. This allowed colonial superpowers to separate themselves from their subjects. As such, borders are a racist structure constitutively and therefore must be removed. People may argue that these borders still serve a useful purpose today, however, that is countered by the fact that it ignores the true humanitarian crisis on the borders. There is no rational justification for slashing the water bottles of migrants in a hot desert instead of racism. However, the other perspective (which may have been added so the reader would take more careful consideration when promoting a narrative of violent borders instead of an outright contradiction) considers how the idea of enforcing mobility as a system of power silences calls for dwelling. If all borders are opened and refugees welcomed, it cannot provide the basis for continuing the contribute to the root cause of those crises. In other words, we must still do all we can to maintain people's rights to stay in their homeland by minimizing things like resource destruction and climate change.
Anyone who read my NF article would likely be interested in this. It contributes further to the idea of Expats, although indirectly. People that are interested in international relations should read this book to frame national distinctions and what it really means to exist in one country versus another. Borders are also a controversial political topic, so anyone interested in the political conversation regarding the US-Mexico border should also consider reading this.

[Boo (Harriet) Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bumped into someone this summer who I’d volunteered with in Calais 4 years ago. We were talking about how our lives had progressed in the humanitarian field and this nagging question of whether we were actually making things worse and contributing to more harm than good. She recommended this book, and although I worked through it slowly, it was incredible. I appreciated the focus on grassroots organisations which are typically less explored in academia, and I found the writing to be accessible whilst also being extensively researched and theoretical. I found it got quite repetitive towards the end and the final chapter felt a bit disjointed with a lack of link backs to the rest of the book, and I don’t quite agree with the stance that the author is only in a position to critique and not offer any tangible solutions for how to address the critiques. Despite this, essential reading for individuals in the humanitarian field and it’s given me so much to think about, whilst also giving academic voice to many of things I’ve been reflecting on from being in grassroots humanitarian spaces

[plusquamperfakt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good research in general focusing on the colonial and westernized background of humanitarian work and solidarity. At times repeating itself a lot. Could have just been 100 pages as well. However, anyone should read it who wants to know how illegalized migration, how states are criminalizing people on the move and the people in solidarity.

[Hilary Slauson · Rating 3 out of 5]

overall quite compelling argument that we wouldn’t need humanitarian responses in borderlands if border politics weren’t actively violent, and that humanitarian responses actually reproduce that violence in some cases. some portions really engaging, a couple connections between abstract theoretical concepts felt like a bit of a stretch. thought provoking re: how to undo this endless cycle.