Divided by the Wall

Progressive and Conservative Immigration Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-0-520-34035-0
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 316 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

The construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border—whether to build it or not—has become a hot-button issue in contemporary America. A recent impasse over funding a wall caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, sharpening partisan divisions across the nation. In the Arizona borderlands, groups of predominantly white American citizens have been mobilizing for decades—some help undocumented immigrants bypass governmental detection, while others help law enforcement agents to apprehend immigrants. Activists on both the left and the right mobilize without an immediate personal connection to the issue at hand, many doubting that their actions can bring about the long-term change they desire. Why, then, do they engage in immigration and border politics so passionately?

Divided by the Wall offers a one-of-a-kind comparative study of progressive pro-immigrant activists and their conservative immigration-restrictionist opponents. Using twenty months of ethnographic research with five grassroots organizations, Emine Fidan Elcioglu shows how immigration politics has become a substitute for struggles around class inequality among white Americans. She demonstrates how activists mobilized not only to change the rules of immigration but also to experience a change in themselves. Elcioglu finds that the variation in social class and intersectional identity across the two sides mapped onto disparate concerns about state power. As activists strategized ways to transform the scope of the state’s power, they also tried to carve out self-transformative roles for themselves. Provocative and even-handed, Divided by the Wall challenges our understanding of immigration politics in times of growing inequality and insecurity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Elcioglu, Emine Fidan

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Politische Soziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Migrations- & Minderheitenpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Politische Soziologie und Psychologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction: State Effects and the Politics
of Immigration in Arizona

PART I USING IMMIGRATION POLITICS TO REMAKE ONESELF
1. Arizona and the Making of an Ambiguous Border

2. Being Progressive, but Privileged

3. Being White, but Working Class

PART II CONTENDING WITH CHALLENGES FROM THE OTHER SIDE
4. The “Other” Border Crosser: How Pro-immigrant Activists Grapple with the Topic

of Cartels

5. “We Work with Border Patrol”: How Restrictionists Struggle with the Topic
of Racism

PART III PRACTICING SYMBOLIC POLITICS

6. Weakening the State: The Pro-immigrant Strategy

7. Strengthening the State: The Restrictionist Strategy

Conclusion: Going beyond the Wall

Appendix 1: Methods

Appendix 2: Interviewees

Notes

References

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Emine Fidan Elcioglu is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto.