Borders, Fences and Walls: State of Insecurity?

Description

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question remains ’Do good fences still make good neighbours’? Since the Great Wall of China, the Antonine Wall, built in Scotland to support Hadrian's Wall, the Roman ’Limes’ or the Danevirk fence, the ’wall’ has been a constant in the protection of defined entities claiming sovereignty, East and West. But is the wall more than an historical relict for the management of borders? In recent years, the wall has been given renewed vigour in North America, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Israel-Palestine. But the success of these new walls in the development of friendly and orderly relations between nations (or indeed, within nations) remains unclear. What role does the wall play in the development of security and insecurity? Do walls contribute to a sense of insecurity as much as they assuage fears and create a sense of security for those 'behind the line'? Exactly what kind of security is associated with border walls? This book explores the issue of how the return of the border fences and walls as a political tool may be symptomatic of a new era in border studies and international relations. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this volume examines problems that include security issues ; the recurrence and/or decline of the wall; wall discourses ; legal approaches to the wall; the ’wall industry’ and border technology, as well as their symbolism, role, objectives and efficiency. Cover Contents List of Figures List of Tables Notes on Contributors Introduction Part I Insecurity and Borders in Europe and North America 1 The Mediterranean Sea as a European Border 2 The Canary Islands’ “Maritime Wall” 3 A Community of Borders, Borders of the Community 4 Border Games: From Duel to Russian Roulette at the Border 5 Borders, Bordered Lands and Borderlands Part II Towards a Theory of Border Walls? 6 Walls and Borders in a Globalized World 7 Border Fences in the Globalizing World 8 Is the Wall Soluble into International Law? 9 Walls of Money Part III Fenced Borders in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 10 Walls and Access to Natural Resources 11 Border Fences as an Anti-Immigration Device 12 Walls, Sensors and Drones 13 Technologies, Practices and the Reproduction of Conflict 14 Towards a High-Tech “Limes” on the Edges of Europe? Managing the External Borders of the European Union 15 Towards the Wall between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora 16 Border Wall as Architecture Index