Gendering Border Studies

The study of borders has recently undergone significant transitions, reflecting changes in the functions of boundaries themselves, as the world political map has experienced transformations. Gender (defined as the knowledge about perceived distinctions between the sexes) is an important signifier of borders as constructed and contested lines of differences. In the interplay with other categories of difference like class, race, ethnicity, and religion, it plays a major role in giving meaning to different forms of borders. It is not surprising, then, that an increasing number of studies in the last years have aimed for a gendering of border studies. This book explores this new interdisciplinary field and develops it further. The main questions it asks are: How do we define 'borders', 'frontiers' and 'boundaries' in different disciplinary approaches of gendered border studies? What were and are the main fields of gendered border studies in different fields? What might be important questions for future research? And how useful is an inter- or transdisciplinary approach for gendered border studies? Sixteen established scholars from various disciplines contribute chapters in which they set out how the issue of gender and borders has been approached in their discipline and describe what they expect from future research.

The basic concern of border studies is to examine and analyze interactions that occur when two groups come into contact with one another. Acculturation and globalization are at the heart of border studies, and cultural studies scholars try to describe the possible interactions in terms of conflicts and resolutions that become the result of those possible encounters. The present book is a peer-reviewed selection of papers presented during the IV Crossing Over Symposium at Cleveland State University held in October, 2011, and it is a follow-up to our discussion on border studies. The main focus of this volume is historical, [inter]national, gender and racial borders, and the implications that all of them have in the construction of an identity.

For whom and why are borders drawn? What are the symbolic projections of these physical realities? And what are the symbolic projections of these physical realities? Constituted by experience and memory, borders shape a "border image" in the minds and social memory of people beyond the lines of the state. In the case of the Turkey-Georgia border, the image of the border has often been constructed as an economic reality that creates "conditional permeabilities" rather than political emphases. This book puts forward the argument that participation in this economic life reshapes the relationship between the ethnic groups who live in the borderland as well as gender relations. By drawing on detailed ethnographic research at the Turkey-Georgia border, life at the border is explored in terms of family relations, work life, and intra- and inter-ethnic group relations. Using an intersectional approach, the book charts the perceptions and representations of how different ethnic and gendered groups experience interactions among themselves, with each other, and with the changing economic context. This book offers a rich, empirically based account of the intersectional and multidimensional forms of economic activity in border regions. It will be of interest to students, researchers, and policy makers alike working in geography, economics, ethnic studies, gender studies, international relations, and political studies.

This book brings an intersectional perspective to border studies, drawing on case studies from across the world to consider the ways in which notably gender and race dynamics change the ways in which people cross international borders, and how diffuse and virtual borders impact on migrants' experiences. By bringing together 11 ethnographies, the book demonstrates the necessity for in-depth empirical research to understand the class, gender and race inequalities that shape contemporary borders. In doing so the volume sheds light on how migration control produces gendered violence at physical borders but also through the politics of vulnerability across borders and social boundaries. It places embodied narratives at the heart of the analysis which sheds light on the agency and the many patterns of resistance of migrants themselves. As such, it will appeal to scholars of migration and diaspora studies with interests in gender.

Gender and Embodied Geographies in Latin American Borders is the first study of its kind to bring a gender perspective to studies on violence and "illegal markets" in the region. Analyzing the structural problems that create inequality and enable gendered violence in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, the authors offer a critique of the securitization of borders and the criminalization of human mobility, and propose alternatives to reduce violence. Newspaper reports on gender and the variables of violence, human trafficking, people smuggling, missing persons, victims and perpetrators uncover the production and reproduction of discourses and images related to violence. Interviews with strategic actors from nongovernmental organizations, academia, as well as public policy makers diversify the experiences from the different voices of authority. Gender and Embodied Geographies in Latin American Borders encourages us to continue to question silence, impunity, the restriction of mobility, the dehumanization of securitization policies and the institutionalization of gender violence. A welcomed must read for scholars, researchers, policy makers, and students of gender studies, security studies and migration.

While gender issues are almost always multidimensional and complex, this book discusses them from a cultural angle and with a focus on crossing borders, to represent their concepts meaningfully and to illuminate their realities as sharply as possible. Its five parts detail specific aspects and issues within that focus, namely communication, literary representation, equality and violence, work and politics, and cross-cultural connections. This combination of a wide topical range with specific discussions of gender issues makes the volume’s insights worthwhile for a wide range of readers, from individuals and groups engaging with current gender challenges, to institutional and political decision-makers entrusted with improving gender relations on national or international levels, up to social, economic or educational institutions empowered to implement such solutions in everyday reality. Its “unity in diversity” contributes to gender and cultural studies by offering considerations and conclusions that are specific and generalizable, theoretically robust and empirically tested, professionally rational and poetically ravishing.

In recent decades, women living in border cities have taken on new roles and have become one of the most vulnerable population groups; experiencing the effects of the economic crisis of the early 21st century and the consequent increase in social inequality and violence. This situation is particularly evident for the northern borderlands of Mexico and Morocco. The geopolitical position of these regions is defined by their strong existing asymmetry with their neighbouring countries: the United States, in the case of Mexico, and the Mediterranean European countries, in the case of Morocco. This book contributes to the understanding of current changes in the workplace, in family, in sexuality and sexual violence within the setting of the borderlands, through various studies addressing the manner in which these transformations are interpreted and experienced by women in everyday life and in their individual and collective agency.

Borders, Histories, Existences: Gender and Beyond contends that borders are, by definition, lines of inclusion and exclusion established by the state. It analyses how states construct borders and try to make them static and rigid and how bordered existences, such as women, migrant workers and victims of human trafficking, destabilise the rigid constructs. It explores the political conditions that have made borders problematic in post-colonial South Asia and how these borders have become regions of extreme control or violence.