A Companion to Border Studies

A Companion to Border Studies “Taking into consideration all aspects this book has a very important role in the professional literature of border studies.”
Cross-Border Review Yearbook of the European Institute

“Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.”
Choice

“This book, with its interdisciplinary team of authors from many world regions, shows the state of the art in this research field admirably.”
Ulf Hannerz, Stockholm University

“This volume will be the definitive work on borders and border-related processes for years into the future. The editors have done an outstanding job of identifying key themes, and of assembling influential scholars to address these themes.
David Nugent, Emory University

“This urgently needed Companion, edited by two leading figures of border studies, reflects past insights and showcases new directions: a must read for understanding territory, power and the state.”
Dr. Nick Vaughan-Williams, University of Warwick

“This impressive collection will have a broad appeal beyond specialist border studies. Anyone with an interest in the nation-state, nationalism, ethnicity, political geography or, indeed, the whole historical project of the modern world system will want to have access to a copy. The substantive scope is global and the intellectual reach deep and wide. Simply indispensable. ”
Richard Jenkins, University of Sheffield

Dramatic growth in the number of international borders has coincided in recent years with greater mobility than ever before – of goods, people and ideas. As a result, interest in borders as a focus of academic study has developed into a dynamic, multi-disciplinary field, embracing perspectives from anthropology, development studies, geography, history, political science and sociology. Authors provide a comprehensive examination of key characteristics of borders and frontiers, including cross-border cooperation, security and controls, migration and population displacements, hybridity, and transnationalism.

A Companion to Border Studies brings together these disciplines and viewpoints, through the writing of an international collection of preeminent border scholars. Drawing on research from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas, the contributors argue that the future of Border Studies lies within such diverse collaborations, which approach comparatively the features of borders worldwide.

Author Biography

Thomas M. Wilson is Professor and Chair of the Department ofAnthropology at Binghamton University, State University of NewYork. From 2008-2010 he was president of the Society for theAnthropology of Europe. His research interests include theanthropology of international borders, European integration andIreland, and he is the editor of Drinking Cultures and Europeanisation and Hibernicisation. Hastings Donnan is Professor of Anthropology atQueen s University Belfast. His research interests includethe study of borders and the anthropology of walking and driving,and he has carried out fieldwork in Ireland and Pakistan. He chairsthe Anthropology and Development Studies panel in the UK sResearch Excellence Framework for 2014, and is the editor ofTransgressive Sex and co-author of The Anthropology ofSex. Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan have previously co-authoredThe Anthropology of Ireland and Borders: Frontiers ofIdentity, Nation and State.