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Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor
Far from creating a borderless world, contemporary globalization has generated a proliferation of borders. In Border as Method , Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson chart this proliferation, investigating its implications for migratory movements, capitalist transformations, and political life. They explore the atmospheric violence that surrounds borderlands and border struggles across various geographical scales, illustrating their theoretical arguments with illuminating case studies drawn from Europe, Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, and elsewhere. Mezzadra and Neilson approach the border not only as a research object but also as an epistemic framework. Their use of the border as method enables new perspectives on the crisis and transformations of the nation-state, as well as powerful reassessments of political concepts such as citizenship and sovereignty.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2016
These two gentlemen, Messrs. Mezzadra and Neilson, are accomplished scamsters. They have managed to produce an entire book based on the research and theoretical insights of other scholars. Inundating the reader with summaries of various monographs and articles published by others, they will then perform a clever sleight of hand by writing, "as we have investigated" or "as we examined in the previous chapter." We readers are such fools that we will easily misremember by the next chapter that those investigations and examinations discussed in the previous one were conducted by someone else--usually a female scholar of Asian extraction.
Globalization, among its many sins, can also be blamed for the proliferation of such scholarship that commits to no context while speaking from everywhere about nothing in tones of breathless discovery.
Globalization, among its many sins, can also be blamed for the proliferation of such scholarship that commits to no context while speaking from everywhere about nothing in tones of breathless discovery.
September 15, 2024
This book's complexity is above average, which is why it took me much longer than usual to get it read all the way, and even now I still struggle to completely comprehend it. A good introduction to this book can be found in the initial essay the authors published in 2008, which can be read here: on the Transversal Texts website. An analysis of the book's impact on "border studies" can be found
The concept of going beyond the "border" as an object of study, to consider it as a "method" of studying, separating and linking people, places and times, while creating a multiplication of zones for the colonisation of capital, is an interesting approach in the wider theme of understanding and fighting against our moment in contemporary capitalism. The book alternates between long academic and non-academic referencing and concrete examples to illustrate some cases (e.g. that of the differential approach of borders for the populations of care workers and finance traders), and concludes with the importance of restablishing "a common/commons" and how the work of translation is key in re/creating connections across the borders in the interest of building a universalist understanding and values.
All in all, a tough read, more for academic people than not, but with an interesting theme that gives some elements of context for future reads on border topics.
The concept of going beyond the "border" as an object of study, to consider it as a "method" of studying, separating and linking people, places and times, while creating a multiplication of zones for the colonisation of capital, is an interesting approach in the wider theme of understanding and fighting against our moment in contemporary capitalism. The book alternates between long academic and non-academic referencing and concrete examples to illustrate some cases (e.g. that of the differential approach of borders for the populations of care workers and finance traders), and concludes with the importance of restablishing "a common/commons" and how the work of translation is key in re/creating connections across the borders in the interest of building a universalist understanding and values.
All in all, a tough read, more for academic people than not, but with an interesting theme that gives some elements of context for future reads on border topics.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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