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Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism by Harsha Walia
pink_distro's review
5.0
this is an astonishing book. the scope of it is incredible and is so deeply researched and well rounded in its analysis. its spot on all the time and moves on so quickly from thing to thing that it can be disorienting to read a little — i made it thru 2 chapters a year ago and picked it up again a week or 2 ago and finished it. but thank god 4 it.
Harsha Walia analyzes:
— the causes of displacement and irregular migration in the first place: neoliberal economics, imperialist aggression, and climate change to name a few
— how borders are not just territorial boundaries ,, but central tools of global capitalist markets, racial/gendered/class orderings, state formation, and more
— that borders are really happening everywhere,, enforced internally through citizenship regimes and pushed externally by making other countries hold the west's detention centers, border guards, refugee camps, etc
— historical foundations of bordering in settler colonialism, colonization, chattel slavery, indentured servitude, and more (depending on place)
— migrant worker programs across the globe
— right wing movements and nationalisms, and how they relate to liberal multiculturalism (she explains how liberalism kind of creates right wing movements ... "the frankenstein of liberalism" she aptly says)
and ALL the while shes constantly highlighting feminist analyses, tying things back to their historical foundations, and mentioning grassroots resistance movements.
she isn't US centric as many armchair analyses of empire are — she spends whole chapters on europe, australia, and canada as imperial cores. she also doesn't flatten the global south, analyzing the right wing movements of India and Brazil, the brutal migrant worker programs of the Gulf countries, and other ways empire operates through neocolonial governments and client states. all the while she highlights the movements and actions being taken by oppressed peoples, not denying their agency and not making empire seem inevitable.
would 10/10 recommend reading it. really does demonstrate the deep and wide terror of borders, global capitalism, and empire, and deeply affirms the belief that ... while there is so much more to it and so much complexity to the world .... whatever we can do to weaken or destabilize the regimes of the US, europe, canada, and australia is gonna do a LOT of people a LOT of good.
Harsha Walia analyzes:
— the causes of displacement and irregular migration in the first place: neoliberal economics, imperialist aggression, and climate change to name a few
— how borders are not just territorial boundaries ,, but central tools of global capitalist markets, racial/gendered/class orderings, state formation, and more
— that borders are really happening everywhere,, enforced internally through citizenship regimes and pushed externally by making other countries hold the west's detention centers, border guards, refugee camps, etc
— historical foundations of bordering in settler colonialism, colonization, chattel slavery, indentured servitude, and more (depending on place)
— migrant worker programs across the globe
— right wing movements and nationalisms, and how they relate to liberal multiculturalism (she explains how liberalism kind of creates right wing movements ... "the frankenstein of liberalism" she aptly says)
and ALL the while shes constantly highlighting feminist analyses, tying things back to their historical foundations, and mentioning grassroots resistance movements.
she isn't US centric as many armchair analyses of empire are — she spends whole chapters on europe, australia, and canada as imperial cores. she also doesn't flatten the global south, analyzing the right wing movements of India and Brazil, the brutal migrant worker programs of the Gulf countries, and other ways empire operates through neocolonial governments and client states. all the while she highlights the movements and actions being taken by oppressed peoples, not denying their agency and not making empire seem inevitable.
would 10/10 recommend reading it. really does demonstrate the deep and wide terror of borders, global capitalism, and empire, and deeply affirms the belief that ... while there is so much more to it and so much complexity to the world .... whatever we can do to weaken or destabilize the regimes of the US, europe, canada, and australia is gonna do a LOT of people a LOT of good.
tony_from_work's review
5.0
A friend recently asked if I've ever read a book that I felt really changed the way I think, and I'd say this is an example. If you have any interest whatsoever in labor exploitation and migrant rights, this is an absolute must-read.
It explores how governments and corporations are incentivized to make it as hard as possible for migrants to work legally, to make the consequences for illegal work as draconian as possible, and to create propaganda that encourages fear and mistrust of the migrant worker. If someone has just had to leave their country but can't meet the impossibly high, expensive, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous standards of finding "legal" work in their new country, they have to work "illegally." And if the punishment for working "illegally" amounts to a death sentence or imprisonment or violence, then workers have absolutely no bargaining power and have to live under the constant fear of exposure for a "crime" they've essentially been forced to commit for someone else's profit. As a consequence, wealthy countries like the U.S. get to benefit off a massive labor force that they can get away with underpaying and depriving of basic labor rights. Capitalist culture loves to demean and demonize the migrant workers that it needs to survive, because the more civic support there is for harsher migration laws, the safer this sadistic racket is from exposure and liberation.
Anyway, this book outlines this much better than my summary. You should read it.
It explores how governments and corporations are incentivized to make it as hard as possible for migrants to work legally, to make the consequences for illegal work as draconian as possible, and to create propaganda that encourages fear and mistrust of the migrant worker. If someone has just had to leave their country but can't meet the impossibly high, expensive, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous standards of finding "legal" work in their new country, they have to work "illegally." And if the punishment for working "illegally" amounts to a death sentence or imprisonment or violence, then workers have absolutely no bargaining power and have to live under the constant fear of exposure for a "crime" they've essentially been forced to commit for someone else's profit. As a consequence, wealthy countries like the U.S. get to benefit off a massive labor force that they can get away with underpaying and depriving of basic labor rights. Capitalist culture loves to demean and demonize the migrant workers that it needs to survive, because the more civic support there is for harsher migration laws, the safer this sadistic racket is from exposure and liberation.
Anyway, this book outlines this much better than my summary. You should read it.
theboricuabookworm's review against another edition
5.0
An incredible narrative that explored the racist and xenophobic history of forced migration across the globe. Refugees are inherently consequences of settler colonialism and neoliberal states would love for us to deny that truth. This is a book I will be returning to and highly suggest gets added to non-fiction must read lists.
zachcarter's review
5.0
Urgent. Unsparing.
Harsha Walia has produced here a text that expertly describes the relationship between racial capitalism and border imperialism, the rise of far-right fascist movements in the US, Israel, India, the Philippines, Brazil, and more.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a book that pulls from more incredible scholars. Walia cites (off the top of my head): Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Robin D. G. Kelley, Edward Said, Gerald Horne, Christina Sharpe, Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Nick Estes, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn, Mariame Kaba, Stuart Hall, and Vincent Bevins.
This was such a well-researched book, and really covered EVERYTHING. It completely changed my thinking about class, race/class relations, migration, and the urgent crisis of border imperialism.
Harsha Walia has produced here a text that expertly describes the relationship between racial capitalism and border imperialism, the rise of far-right fascist movements in the US, Israel, India, the Philippines, Brazil, and more.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a book that pulls from more incredible scholars. Walia cites (off the top of my head): Frantz Fanon, Walter Rodney, Robin D. G. Kelley, Edward Said, Gerald Horne, Christina Sharpe, Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Nick Estes, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn, Mariame Kaba, Stuart Hall, and Vincent Bevins.
This was such a well-researched book, and really covered EVERYTHING. It completely changed my thinking about class, race/class relations, migration, and the urgent crisis of border imperialism.