Border Politics in a Global Era

Comparative Perspectives

By (author) Kathleen Staudt

Not available to order

Publication date:

16 June 2017

Length of book:

304 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442266193

Initially, research in border studies relied mainly on generalizations from cases in the US-Mexico borderlands before subsequently burgeoning in Europe. Border Politics in a Global Era seeks to expand the study further to include the post-colonial South in response to the major challenge of interdisciplinary border studies: to explore borderlands in many contexts, with and across a variety of states, including the so-called developing, post-colonial states.

Culled from decades of firsthand observations of borders from around the world and written with a critical and gender lens, the text is framed with attention to history, geography, and the power of films and travelogues to represent people as “others.” Professor Kathleen Staudt advances border concepts, categories, and theories to focus on trade, migration, and security highlighting the importance of states, their length of time since independence, and border bureaucrats’ discretionary practices. Drawing on her Border Inequalities Database for a global perspective, Staudt calls for reducing inequalities and building institutions in the common grounds of borderlands. The book features maps and other visuals with lists of links at the close of most chapters.

Broadly comparative in nature, Border Politics in a Global Era will appeal not only to students of border studies; it will also stimulate attention in comparative politics, international studies, and political geography.
Border Politics in a Global Era is the most ambitious project of its kind and a must-read for border observers and scholars. Through a critical perspective, a focus on gendered research and more than thirty-five years of lived experience, Kathleen Staudt captures the reality of borders, borderland spaces and borderlanders throughout the world. This book offers a pioneering approach to border studies by drawing on multiple disciplines and including the post-colonial South and maritime borders with a focus on reducing inequalities and building institutions. Advancing new border categories and innovative theoretical perspectives, it highlights the importance of greater equity and freedom of mobility across borders, and it views immigration as an opportunity rather than a burden. Staudt’s perspective advocates progressive practices “that move societies toward more open and cooperative borders as metaphoric bridges, rather than closed and conflictual borders as barriers.