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Immigration, policing, and the politics of time
Author(s) -
Boyce Geoffrey A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/gec3.12496
Subject(s) - temporality , articulation (sociology) , scholarship , politics , geopolitics , dialectic , migration studies , mobilities , sociology , dimension (graph theory) , immigration , state (computer science) , political science , political economy , criminology , gender studies , economic geography , social science , geography , law , epistemology , philosophy , mathematics , algorithm , computer science , pure mathematics
Abstract This article argues for time and temporality as a critical dimension in the dialectical articulation of im/migration struggles. To make this case, the article draws on an emerging body of interdisciplinary scholarship on the temporal dimensions of im/migration and of im/migration policing. It then uses this framework to explore a host of anti‐im/migrant initiatives currently unfolding in North America under the geopolitical leadership of Donald J. Trump. Contextualizing these initiatives within a longer genealogy of im/migration and im/migration policing across the continent, the article affirms scholarly characterizations of im/migrants' desires and aspirations as a “creative force” that “structurally exceed” border controls ( The contested politics of mobility: Borderzones and irregularity ); but it also argues a need for greater scholarly attention to how the violence associated with im/migration policing generates nonlinear im/migration dynamics and recursive pressures on nation‐state borders and their police apparatus over the long durée. The article concludes by considering the theoretical, political, and empirical stakes of a conceptual shift in emphasis from space to time in the study of im/migration and im/migration policing, and then offers several concrete suggestions for further inquiry.