Porous Borders? Geography, Power and Techniques of Movement (242-0-1)
Instructors
Emrah Yildiz
1819 Hinman Ave, #103
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1-3pm
Emrah Yıldız joins the Department of Anthropology and the Middle East and North African Studies Program and as an Assistant Professor. His work is a historical anthropology of routes of mobility in the tri-border area among Iran, Turkey and Syria. His research lies at the intersection of historiography and ethnography of borders and their states; ritual practice, visitation and pilgrimage in Islam as well as smuggling and contraband commerce in global political economy.
Meeting Info
ANTHRO Sem Rm 104 - 1810 Hinmn: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
At the advent of "globalization" some scholars argued that the movements of capital, goods, people and ideas across nation-states have rendered their borders increasingly porous. The erosive effects of this porosity in the age of the multi-national corporations heralded the death of the nation-state. Yet, in the epoch of border walls and offshored refugee processing centers, this assumed porosity of borders begs a reexamination of broader geographies of power and tactics of movement. In this course, we ask: What is a border? Is it the physical line drawn between two states? When is a border artificial and when natural? Who gets to draw these lines? How does the border become an architecture of regulation that extends access to mobility to some and denies it to others? We will probe these questions by working towards rethinking borders as equally the products of mobile social actors, contraband commodities and fluctuating values as they are of state policies aimed at managing their movements. By the end of the course students will be exposed to diverse theories of space and formations of borders in the Americas, Europe, and South Asia. They will be able to articulate what an attention to space and the relations of power inscribed in border formations can contribute to our conceptions of space and power.
Learning Objectives
"By the end of the course, student will be able to
• recognize prevalent interpretations of borders and space in anthropological and allied disciplines,
• evaluate core concepts related to transformation of borders and territory from the era of "globalization" to "securitization"
• generate different theories of borders by analyzing ethnographic evidence drawn from three world regions"
Class Materials (Required)
"Readings: All required text apart from the book-length manuscripts below can be found under files on the course website.
Heath Cabot, 2014. On the doorstep of Europe: Asylum and Citizenship in Greece. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN-13 : 978-0812246155
Ieva Jusionyte, 2018. Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border. University of California Press. ISBN-13: 978-0520297180
Malini Sur, 2022. Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India-Bangladesh Border. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN-13 : 978-0812224788"
Class Attributes
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area