Editorial
Co-editors: Vanessa Beck, Giorgos Gouzoulis and Chris Pesterfield
Be they imaginary, physically constructed or sociopolitically geolocated, borders have been afforded much attention in the realms of work and employment for affecting multiple dimensions that shape both territorial governance and the lives of specific groups of workers. Conflicts across states and the globe have placed borders at the core of scholarly analysis in the field, and insights from Preminger’s analysis of work and bordering in the context of the Palestine–Israel conflict set the tone for this special issue, of which he is one of the editors. In past research, Preminger has shown how the working conditions of Palestinians are shaped by the myriad borders criss-crossing territories controlled by Israel. These borders, he has claimed, do not just facilitate the exploitation of Palestinian workers, but also enable the Israeli state to manage the conflicting logics of settler-colonialism: the inclusion of a cheap workforce and the exclusion of the unwanted ‘other’.
Contributing to more pluralist and radical perspectives on the normalised marginalisation of groups of workers, critical research on work’s intersection with borders fleshes out their ‘ideological’ character. If borders are (also) ‘ideological’, we argue, their capacities to reinforce inequality may be experienced in distinct forms across various contexts. This special issue aims to capture some of this variety through a series of articles focusing on different border and bordering experiences, directing a sharper lens onto the subjective experiences of workers compelled to navigate both multiple forms of crossing and the denial of passage.
Critical scholarship has long problematised popular assumptions about borders as ‘something to get through’ on a journey from one place to another. Physical borders are merely a part of broader immigration regimes, which embody the policies, interests and attitudes of actors who control, struggle over and shape the rules and processes that grant passage to certain people and block others – while detaining some in liminal spaces of borderlands. The state is just one of these actors. Such scholarship has also shown how these immigration regimes and the ‘bordering practices’ associated with them are not confined to border zones, but extend outwards to shape people’s lives long before they attempt to cross a border, and their impact is felt long after passage has been granted. Moreover, the border of state sovereignty is often incongruent with other kinds of authority, such as the extent of judicial authority, consistent application of laws or de facto security activities.
Building on this scholarship, this special issue explores the interaction between borders/bordering and people’s aspirations, challenging normalised dynamics and popular rhetoric of protective state border control versus migrants’ desire to transit. The contributions in this special issue emphasise the contested and negotiated aspects of borders, bringing a sociological perspective to reveal the ideological choices underpinning border regimes, the power differentials among the myriad actors who shape them, and the ways in which borders can facilitate the exploitation of both people and place.
Borders as instruments of power facilitating the extraction of value, a theme running throughout the special issue, is explored explicitly in two of the contributions. In the perspective of mobility as a trajectory between two fixed points, the extraction of value from those going through the border regime is well known: Agents demand fees, expenses proliferate, debt is incurred. This extraction of value is crucial to maintaining this regime. Through her discussion of the US–Mexican Guest Worker Program, Bernardi expands this focus on mobility, asserting that immobility is equally crucial in maintaining the border regime, that value is extracted from those ‘left behind’, denied passage or detailed, too: Immobility is valorised no less than mobility. ‘Immobilisation – whether through forced waiting, administrative opacity or physical confinement – is a central component of this regime. It sustains surplus labour pools, fuels local informal economies and reshapes workers’ expectations.’ Bernardi’s contribution thus shows how the regime of mobility is mirrored by a regime of immobility, thereby illuminating an important facet of the extensive reach of border regimes and their pervasive presence in people’s lives.
In recent years, higher education institutions have emerged as principal actors in maintaining immigration regimes and governing border mobility: Universities are required to police their ‘foreign’ students while immigration policies and hostile political rhetoric undermine universities’ income streams. In their study of higher education institutions in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Lariani and Dağtaş explore the exploitation facilitated by the misalignment among various jurisdictions along the Green Line which divides the north and south of the island, and what they call ‘nested borders’ – the ‘gaps and overlaps between territorial, institutional and legal regimes that both constrain and enable movement’.
In this extreme case of universities as border regime actors, Lariani and Dağtaş show how higher education is embedded within and shores up a mobility regime that facilitates the extraction of value from students trapped in these overlapping, contested borders: Studentship, they suggest, takes on the quality of ‘confined labour’ even as students also learn to navigate the temporal, spatial and legal restrictions in pursuit of their own aims. More broadly, Lariani and Dağtaş’s contribution is a reminder of the way border regimes influence – and are influenced by – the institutions within the bordered territory.
Garvey and his colleagues’ study of indigenous Amazonian lands and the encroachment of mining and logging reveals other ways in which negotiation and power struggles over borders can facilitate exploitation. However, their contribution also challenges an assumption at the heart of much discussion around borders: We tend to think of borders as marking a boundary between two similar states, in both senses of the word (a condition and a modern political entity) but borders also mark or are intended to mark the boundaries of norms and values, captured in romantic ideas of the Wild West beyond the borders of ‘civilisation’. In the case presented by Garvey et al., the Munduruku demarcated their own land. For them, the officially recognised boundaries of indigenous territories protect their ‘collective life, work and meaning within the forest’. For wildcat miners, land grabbers, the state and commercial organisations, these boundaries are capitalism’s ‘unincorporated horizon’, an obstacle to be ‘reworked, reinterpreted and overcome’.
The case thus highlights not merely contestation over the position of a border, but over its very meaning, which impacts what the border protects, permits or facilitates. Capitalist extractive logic gains dominance, forcing ‘top-down developmentalist strategies aligned to cartesian presentation of space and linear conceptions of time and progress’ on inhabitants whose territory is conceived by corporations as terra nullius, ripe for exploitation.
Continuing the theme of contestation over time, Little, Nakata and Watkin Lui undermine the ahistorical, essentialist view of state borders to reveal the ongoing impact of historical struggle and change. In their study of the Torres Strait Islands, they show how both colonial control and more recent acknowledgement of past ‘spatial understandings’ that ‘precede and exceed’ the imposition of modern state borders create ‘fluid borderlands’ with varying significances in diverse spheres, from fishing and trade to international relations.
Focusing on labour mobility, their contribution shows how border regimes can act not only as barrier but also as bridge: While colonialism historically restrained island life, the Torres Strait Islanders found greater personal mobility and autonomy on the mainland, even as they also encountered marginalisation and discrimination in ‘White Australia’. Although a unique case, the Torres Straits Islands nonetheless show how border regimes are shaped by, and shape, the development of communities, while also highlighting the power of local cultures and identities to challenge state-centred perspectives of borders.
In his contribution, Preminger expands on his previous work to suggest that borders in the Palestine–Israel conflict are not only a means of managing conflicting logics and the interests of diverse actors, but also have an important discursive role: In its control of the ‘border’ ostensibly between Israel and Palestine, Israel discursively constructs a sovereign ‘Palestine’ against which it is defending itself. It emphasises Palestinian attacks across the border, thereby obscuring its de facto control of these ostensibly Palestinian territories and creating a barbarian ‘enemy at the gate’ of the civilised world – ultimately concealing the settler-colonial character of the Israeli state.
Together, the contributions show the extent of the impact of borders and bordering, within and beyond nation-state territories, and the range of actors involved in shaping border regimes. Through these focused studies, we see the exploitation that results from actors pursuing their interests in the spaces and paths of action facilitated by such regimes, themselves the result of contestation not merely over territorial claim but over logics, ideologies and significances. The special issue thus emphasises how bordering operates beyond physical limits when it crystallises into institutional logics that can be used as instruments of power, perpetuate inequalities and pervade individuals’ lives over time.
Image credit: Javier González Fotógrafo via Unsplash