Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Christine M Alder Book Prize 2013Controlling border crossing has become an urgent concern under conditions of globalization, leading Western governments to introduce increasingly coercive control measures. Far from eradicating spontaneous border crossing, this defensive geography has fuelled illicit people-smuggling markets, and forced asylum seekers and illegalized travellers into increasingly hazardous journeys.
Drawing on data from official sources, media reports and lists of deaths collated by non-governmental organizations in Europe, Australia and North America, this book draws direct parallels between the border control policies adopted across the Global North, and a mounting death toll of illegalized border crossers. It analyses the political and material conditions driving contemporary border control policies and discusses the processes that mediate popular and official understandings of border-related fatalities. In seeking to account for, rather than merely count, border-related deaths the book is intended to shift the debate about contemporary border controls towards the acceptance of a more mobility-tolerant future.
Review
'The authors are two of the foremost researchers in the criminology of migration control - a specialist area that they have done much to create and set the agenda for. This book promises to become a standard work on this topic which will provide new and important insights.' - Professor Ben Bowling, King's College, London, UK
Review
"Globalization and Borders: Death at the Global Frontier is a must-read for anyone interested in rethinking the problem of policing migration beyond traditional approaches to migration, border controls and sovereignty." -Punishment and Society
"This is an ambitious book that brings attention to an understudied phenomenon, and attempts to develop a criminological explanation for deaths at the border. It pushes the emerging fields of the criminology of mobility and
border criminologies (Aas and Bosworth, 2013) forward since it develops theoretical and empirical links between migration and crime. But, rather than focus exclusively on the criminalization of migration, the books highlights the crimes of the powerful that produce great social harm, a topic of renewed interest to criminology. As such, the book will appeal to readers in critical criminology, socio-legal studies, migration, human rights, international law and globalization among other related fields."
-Theoretical Criminology
"Weber and Pickering's book unravels a striking and largely under-researched facet of immigration as a growing global phenomenon [...] It is a well-documented research about the most pernicious consequences of border controls. By meticulously linking these tragedies to border measures, Pickering and Weber have presented a powerful insight that runs contrary to the dominant public discourse on 'border protection' in Western countries. It is a necessary read for both academics and policy makers." - The British Journal of Criminology
"Globalization and Borders is a comprehensive and insightful study of the deadly nature of border policing activities carried out in Europe and the US. As such, it provides a crucial resource for understanding the fate that awaits asylum seekers deterred from attempting to reach Australia." - Current Issues in Criminal Justice
'Migration and borders are deeply contested and political issues. Pickering and Weber are two of the most passionate and well informed academic voices in the debate. Drawing from a remarkable range of sources and brilliantly written, their 'border autopsy' is a must-read for any policy maker, student and academic with interest in migration. In fact, it should be read by anyone. The extraordinary human tragedies unfolding at the Western borders, which are masterfully documented and analysed in this book, should not be left to the especially interested.' - Katja Franko Aas, University of Oslo, Norway
'The authors are two of the foremost researchers in the criminology of migration control - a specialist area that they have done much to create and set the agenda for. This book promises to become a standard work on this topic which will provide new and important insights.' - Ben Bowling, King's College, London, UK
'So much of our work here at the Institute is about collecting information on deaths - racist murders, deaths in police custody, in prisons, deaths at the border, deaths in detention centres, asylum seekers who give up hope, hang themselves, jump off balconies. So this book makes me think why do we do it? … It's as though, those of us who have been in the business of counting and accounting have without our knowing it provided a counter-balance to the processes of neutralisation, dehumanisation and distanciation that this book describes.' -Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relations London, UK
'Deaths at the migratory fault lines where rich and poor nations intersect are an almost taken-for-granted reality of our increasingly unequal times. Powerful nations 'illegalize' desperate migrants and subject them to ever more arduous journeys to prevent entry, but they prefer to keep the consequences of these actions out of public view. This thoughtful book, written in the style of an inquest, lays bare the violence that underlies contemporary border control and provides groundwork for a much-needed reconceptualization of national responsibilities.' - Doris Marie Provine, Professor of Justice Studies, Arizona State University, USA
Synopsis
This book analyzesthe political and material conditions driving contemporary border control policies and discusses the processes that mediate popular and official understandings of border-related fatalities.
About the Author
Leanne Weber is Senior Research Fellow at Monash University, Australia. She is co-editor of Borders, Mobility and Technologies of Control and has published extensively on the detention of asylum seekers, the policing of migration and the nature of contemporary borders.
Sharon Pickering is Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Monash University, Australia. She is the Editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology and the author of Women, Policing and Resistance in Northern Ireland, Refugees and State Crime and Borders and Violence.
Table of Contents
List of Tables, Figures and Images
Acknowledgements
List of Acronyms
1. Introduction: Globalization and Borders
PART I: BORDER AUTOPSY: EXAMINING CONTEMPORARY BORDERS
2. Charting the Global Frontier
3. Counting and Discounting Border Deaths
4. Accounting for Deaths at the Border
PART II: BORDER INQUEST: MISADVENTURE OR DEATH BY POLICY?
5. Structural Violence
6. Suspicious Deaths
7. Suicide and Self-harm
PART III: FROM FINDING TRUTH TO PREVENTING BORDER HARM
8. The Ambiguous Architecture of Risk
9. Conclusion: Preventing Death by Sovereignty
Notes
Bibliography
Index