For a Kinder, Gentler Society
Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance
  • Jeff Shantz
  • and Contributors . . .
Reviews Table of Contents Introduction «Back
Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance.
Sound Bite
Despite claims about globalization, we see increasing surveillance, tightened restrictions and growing punitive regimes at international borders. This critical collection examines processes of racialization in relation to border regulations and restrictions. It analyses border controls, racism, and representations of race, within multinational contexts as aspects of neo-liberal governance. It also looks at means by which people resist or challenge racialization. This collection uses the lenses of sociology, criminology, art, literary criticism and political science to critically examine varied processes of racialization, criminalization and resistance in relation to borders with reference to multi-national contexts in the current period.�  � 

About the Author

Jeff Shantz, the editor, is an engaged activist scholar who has taught anarchist theories in a variety of university classes and community-based courses, and who has decades of community organizing experience within social movements.

Jeff teaches critical theory, elite deviance, community and human rights in the Department of Criminology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Metro Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of the book Living Anarchy: Theory and Practice in Anarchist Movements. His writings have appeared in leading international journals including Critical Sociology, Critique of Anthropology, Feminist Review and New Politics as well as numerous anthologies. A longtime community organizer, he has been a member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and host of the weekly "Anti-Poverty Report" on radio stations CHRY and CKLN in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Shantz received his Ph.D. from York University in Toronto.

Dr. Graciela Susana Boruszko teaches in the Department of International Studies and Languages, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California. She obtained her degree in French Philology from the University of Madrid. She also completed a D.E.A. in Comparative Literature Studies at the University of Dijon, France. Her areas of research are: Comparative Literature and Linguistics, Comparative Culture Studies, Hispanic Studies and French and Francophone Studies.

Elvira Doghem-Rashid is currently a doctoral research student at the Kings Institute for the Study of Public Policy (KISPP), King College London. Her thesis deals with the impact of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000) on social mobility, specifically the effect of the Act on ethnic differences in educational attainment in the UK. She is also a member of the government’s Census Diversity Advisory Group and is one of the first members of Runnymede 360°, the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank. Her research interests are firmly rooted in the areas of ethnicity and multiculturalism, more recently termed social cohesion, with the Asian and Arab ethnic groups of particular interest in her research. These interests have also developed into an interest into ethno-religious differences and a focus on Muslim communities. During her research, she has worked on a number of research projects focussed on minority ethnic/racial groups and authored the UK’s first published report on the Halal Food Market (2000) published by Mintel. Outside of research, Elvira has a personal interest in promoting cultural engagement with the Arab community in the UK.

Aaron Fine received his BFA in Painting in 1993 from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio where he wrote a Philosophy honors thesis on Spinoza. Mr. Fine attended Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, where he studied art in an interdisciplinary environment, served as a humanities scholar, and received his MFA in Painting in 1996. In 1999 Aaron Fine accepted his current position as Professor of Art and Gallery Director at Truman State University in Kirksville Missouri. From May 2007 to August 2008 Mr. Fine was on sabbatical writing about pedagogy and pursuing a new body of work in mixed media drawing which can be seen at aaronfineart.com. Since then Mr. Fine has been adding more curatorial work and research into visual culture to his activities as a devoted academic.

Peter Fine is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at New Mexico State University. As a designer, artist and writer, he explores the role of the design past, present and future, seeking ways to integrate design history, theory and criticism with practice. He is currently exploring ways to make environmental concerns a vital component of the Graphic Design curriculum at NMSU. He continues work on his book Graphic Design Reconsidered an introduction to the subject of green design for students and professionals. In his course Visualizing Race students compare their DNA, personal identity and medium to understand how race and representation operate within Visual Culture. Fine received his MFA from the University of Arizona in 2004.

Dr. Michael Kilburn, former IREX scholar at the Institute for Contemporary History in Prague (1999), is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Liberal Studies at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. His research interests include human rights pedagogy, democratization, and the use of music and art in political advocacy. Kilburn is currently working on an English translation of Vanek’s environmental book No Breathing Room (1996). Dr. Kilburn has a lifelong mission to increase aw areness of and engagement with politics and international affairs. He founded the Endicott Center for Oral History.

Dr. David Magill is Assistant Professor of English and Women and Gender Studies at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. He has published several essays in collections on masculinity and race in literature and popular culture. He is currently working on a manuscript entitled Modern Masculinities : Nostalgic White Manhood and Jazz Age Politics .

Dr. Heidi Rimke teaches in the Department of Sociology at The University of Winnipeg, Canada. She specializes in the areas of classical and contemporary social and political thought, historical and political sociology, criminology, cultural studies, the history of the philosophies of the social sciences, and the history of the human sciences with a focus on “psy” discourses and practices. Her publications examine the role of popular psychology/self-help in neo-liberalism; the history of psychiatry, the medicalization of morality; political biography; the history of criminal sciences; and anti-capitalist resistance movements. Some of her current projects examine the criminalization/pathologization of resistance; the psychiatrization of everyday life; the birth of psychopolitics and psychocentrism as neo-liberal political technologies; and, capitalism and cannibalism.

Harsha Walia is a community organizer and writer active in Metro Vancouver. She is a member of No One Is Illegal (NOII). No One Is Illegal-Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group with leadership from members of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. As a movement for self-determination that challenges the ideology of immigration controls, NOII members are in full confrontation with Canadian border policies; denouncing and taking action to combat racial profiling, detention and deportation, the national security apparatus, law enforcement brutality, and exploitative working conditions of migrants. They struggle for the right of our communities to maintain their livelihoods and resist war, occupation, and displacement; while supporting indigenous sisters and brothers fighting theft of land and colonization. They also place themselves within the broader movement for global social justice that struggles against capitalism, militarism, oppression, poverty, imperialism, and other systems of domination and exploitation.

About the Book
While policies like SB 1070, Arizona's now infamous immigration legislation, have raised issues of racial profiling and policing practices, there have been few detailed analyses of broader practices of racialization and racism at borders more...
While policies like SB 1070, Arizona's now infamous immigration legislation, have raised issues of racial profiling and policing practices, there have been few detailed analyses of broader practices of racialization and racism at borders more extensively. Some works have focused specifically upon profiling, without looking at varied processes of racialization. In addition, most studies of border controls have examined the US context, while few have looked at racism and racialization and borders in multinational contexts as the current work does. The work provides analyses of constructions of race and repressive border policies and examines critically larger policy questions in the context of neoliberal governance practices. It can serve as a primary or supplementary text for university courses in Criminology, Sociology, Politics, Geography, Cultural Studies and International Affairs. Beyond academia, it provides a useful resource for civil liberties and human rights groups, advocacy movements and community organizations supporting immigrants and refugees as well as those representing members of racialized non-migrant communities in diverse contexts. The Editor's introduction examines the historical and recent contexts of racial profiling and resistance to profiling, especially since 9/11 and the war on terror. Chapters contributed by scholars from a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and institutions explore the problem of "the Other," the power and means of defining "territory," gender, the treatment of indigenous peoples, and the active and passive ways in which those in the dominant group step over, obliterate, abuse and turn a blind eye to all other groups. In contrast, Graciela Susana Boruszko discusses the concept of "hospitality" -- calling upon each of us to "make room for the other" and asserting that "divergent perspectives do not call for reconciliation but to remain standing at ease, side by side, while we disagree on that issue." It is a work that will provide a rich resource for those interested in issues of border controls and migration beyond the din of mainstream media discussions. It will be of value to academics and researchers on border and migration issues as well as community advocates dealing with the issues everyday on the front lines.
More . . .
Millions of Americans are now routinely profiled through secret surveillance and fast drift-net data mining operations conducted by the FBI and NSA with the complicity of private telecom companies. This 'total information awareness" program illustrates on a society-wide scale the betrayal of the social contract heretofore experienced only by minority populations. The philosophical implications of this Hobbesian turn bode even worse for democracy. A government proactively searching for...
Millions of Americans are now routinely profiled through secret surveillance and fast drift-net data mining operations conducted by the FBI and NSA with the complicity of private telecom companies. This 'total information awareness" program illustrates on a society-wide scale the betrayal of the social contract heretofore experienced only by minority populations. The philosophical implications of this Hobbesian turn bode even worse for democracy. A government proactively searching for enemies, rather than operating deductively from actionable intelligence, creates a climate of fear and paranoia and undermines civil society. Just as racially biased enforcement compromises community policing, a government that regards its own citizens is a pool of potential enemies rather than constituents, is fundamentally undemocratic.

Pages 188
Year: 2010
BISAC: POL004000� �  POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights
BISAC: SOC007000� �  SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration
BISAC: SOC031000� �  SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination & Race Relations
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ISBN: 978-0-87586-807-3
Price: USD 19.95
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ISBN: 978-0-87586-808-0
Price: USD 29.95
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