Border Politics

In the current historical moment borders have taken on heightened material and symbolic significance, shaping identities and the social and political landscape. "Borders"-defined broadly to include territorial dividing lines as well as sociocultural boundaries-have become increasingly salient sites of struggle over social belonging and cultural and material resources. How do contemporary activists navigate and challenge these borders? What meanings do they ascribe to different social, cultural and political boundaries, and how do these meanings shape the strategies in which they engage? Moreover, how do these social movements confront internal borders based on the differences that emerge within social change initiatives? Border Politics, edited by Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez, explores these important questions through eleven carefully selected case studies situated in geographic contexts around the globe. By conceptualizing struggles over identity, social belonging and exclusion as extensions of border politics, the authors capture the complex ways in which geographic, cultural, and symbolic dividing lines are blurred and transcended, but also fortified and redrawn. This volume notably places right-wing and social justice initiatives in the same analytical frame to identify patterns that span the political spectrum. Border Politics offers a lens through which to understand borders as sites of diverse struggles, as well as the strategies and practices used by diverse social movements in today's globally interconnected world. Contributors: Phillip Ayoub, Renata Blumberg, Yvonne Braun, Moon Charania, Michael Dreiling, Jennifer Johnson, Jesse Klein, Andrej Kurnik, Sarah Maddison, Duncan McDuie-Ra, Jennifer Bickham Mendez, Nancy A. Naples, David Paternotte, Maple Razsa, Raphi Rechitsky, Kyle Rogers, Deana Rohlinger, Cristina Sanidad, Meera Sehgal, Tara Stamm, Michelle Téllez

1. Border Politics: Contests over Territory, Nation, Identity, 1 and Belonging Jennifer Bickham Mendez and Nancy A. Naples Part I: Gendered, Ethno-Nationalist Struggles and Militarization 2. "Border Granny Wants You!”: Grandmothers Policing Nation 35 at the US-Mexico Border Jennifer L. Johnson 3. Defending the Nation: Militarism, Women's Empowerment, 60 and the Hindu Right Meera Sehgal 4. Borders, Territory, and Ethnicity: Women and the Naga 95 Peace Process Duncan McDuie-Ra 5. Imperial Gazes and Queer Politics: Re/Reading Female 120 Political Subjectivity in Pakistan Moon M. Charania Part II: Politicized Identities and Belonging 6. Indigenous Peoples and Colonial Borders: Sovereignty, 153 Nationhood, Identity, and Activism Sarah Maddison 7. Constricting Boundaries: Collective Identity in the Tea 177 Party Movement Deana A. Rohlinger, Jesse Klein, Tara M. Stamm, and Kyle Rogers 8. Occupy Slovenia: How Migrant Movements Contributed 206 to New Forms of Direct Democracy Maple Razsa and Andrej Kurnik 9. Challenging Borders, Imagining Europe: Transnational 230 LGBT Activism in a New Europe Phillip M. Ayoub and David Paternotte Part III: Contested Solidarities and Emerging Sites of Struggle 10. Frames, Boomerangs, and Global Assemblages: Border 261 Distortions in the Global Resistance to Dam Building in Lesotho Yvonne A. Braun and Michael C. Dreiling 11. Networks, Place, and Barriers to Cross-Border Organizing