Nancy Naples, Editor
In the current historical moment borders have taken on heightened material and symbolic significance, shaping identities and the social and political landscape. “Borders”—defined broadly to include territorial dividing lines as well as sociocultural boundaries—have become increasingly salient sites of struggle over social belonging and cultural and material resources. How do contemporary activists navigate and challenge these borders? What meanings do they ascribe to different social, cultural, and political boundaries, and how do these meanings shape the strategies in which they engage? Moreover, how do these social movements confront internal borders based on the differences that emerge within social change initiatives? This book explores these important questions through case studies situated in geographic contexts around the globe. By conceptualizing struggles over identity, social belonging, and exclusion as extensions of border politics, the book captures the complex ways in which geographic, cultural, and symbolic dividing lines are blurred and transcended, but also fortified and redrawn. The book places right-wing and social justice initiatives in the same analytical frame to identify patterns that span the political spectrum. It offers a lens through which to understand borders as sites of diverse struggles, as well as the strategies and practices used by diverse social movements in today's globally interconnected world.
