Crossing borders in North America after 9/11: ‘regular’ travellers’ narratives of securitisations and contestations

Abstract

This article is part of a larger project on ordinary border crossings and state practices in North America. The changing border governmentalities in the region focusing on securitising their borders against potential terrorist threats and the increased emphasis on the managing of population flows have led to a reduced mobility for certain travellers as opposed to others. The construction of potentially safe and ‘un-safe’ subjects through profiling on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion and socioeconomic background and the increasing use of biometrics have impacted upon travellers’ mobilities. In the North American context, the Mexican state has undergone significant modernisation in terms of its border control capacities, thus enhancing not only its capacity as a buffer state, but also its performative sovereignty, and is therefore an interesting case to study. This article aims to analyse how these transformations in border governmentalities have affected the mobility of ‘ordinary’ travellers, and how they have developed coping strategies and resistances towards the potential curbing of their respective mobilities.

Keywords:

• Borders
• travellers
• mobility
• crossing(s)
• contestation(s)
• North America

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my (former) students Rocio Osorno Velázquez, Edmundo Meza Rodríguez, Brenda Ramírez Contreras, and Ariadna Hernández de la Cruz for their wonderful dedication and support in preparing this article.

Notes

1. For a detailed analysis of measures taken by the Mexican government, see my paper: Marchand, “Crossing Borders: Mexican State Practices.” (Accepted.)

2. See: Homeland Security Advisory System.

3. Department of Homeland Security, NTAS Frequently Asked Questions.

4. Ibid.

5. The overall project is called “Unpacking the Borders: North American Stories of Ordinary Crossings and State Practices.”

6. Full questionnaire available at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1aELYz13XrAx5PHyTvBqyWnCdImRHP-OAb6cT61zMmhA/viewform

7. See among others: Kearney, “El poder clasificador y filtrador”; Lemke, “‘Birth of Bio-politics’”; Rygiel, “Governing Mobility”; Sheller, “Mobility”; Squire, “Acts of Desertion.”

8. Epstein, “Guilty Bodies, Productive Bodies”; Lippert and O’Connor, “Security Assemblages”; Salter, “‘No Joking!’”

9. Salter, “‘No Joking!,’” 61.

10. Marchand, “Challenging Globalisation,” 154.

11. Marchand, “Challenging Globalisation,” 155.

12. Scott, “Domination and the Arts of Resistance,” 70.

13. Ibid.

14. Salter, “Governmentalities of an Airport.”

15. Salter, “Governmentalities of an Airport,” 49.

16. Salter, “Make Move and Let Stop.”

17. Personal observation, 6 June 2010.

18. Bates, “Letter to Members,” reproduced in Goldberg, “American Airlines Pilots.”

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Lippert and O’Connor, “Security Assemblages”; TSA, “Mission.”

22. “TSA Moments”. The Huffington Post, 1–45.

23. “TSA Moments,” The Huffington Post, 24; “Jesse Ventura Lawsuit Dismissed,” The Huffington Post.

24. “TSA Moments,” The Huffington Post, 2, 15.

25. Homeland Security Subcommittee, “TSA's Recent Scanner Shuffle”; Oversight and Government Reform Committee, “TSA: Security Gaps.”

26. Stanley, “TSA’s First 11 Years”; EPIC, Epic.org: EPIC v. DHS.

27. Winter and Currier, “Exclusive.”

28. TSA, SPOT Referral Report.

29. In our research we did not find information about challenges against the TSA by non-US travellers.

30. For a visual analysis of people living at the Mexican–US border, see the film footage by Cynthia Weber, “I Am not an Immigrant.”

31. See the online questionnaire, at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1aELYz13XrAx5PHyTvBqyWnCdImRHP-OAb6cT61zMmhA/viewform.

32. Salter, “Governmentalities of an Airport”.

33. Ibid.

34. This is a yearly relay run in support of migrants from the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.