“Lines of Life and Death”: A Podcast with Geographer Joseph Nevins on Global Apartheid and the Right to the World

Lauded border scholar Joseph Nevins dissects the global border apparatus, shows its parallels with South African apartheid, and calls for both freedom of movement and the right to stay home

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Border Militarization
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April 14, 2022
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“Lines of Life and Death”: A Podcast with Geographer Joseph Nevins on Global Apartheid and the Right to the World
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If you are confused by competing messages about Title 42, and the ever-changing policies at the border, please join us on Thursday, April 21 for a discussion thread. (We still have to confirm some things, but tentatively we will start at 10 am PT/ 11 am MT/ 12 pm CT/ 1 pm ET, so please pencil us in!)

Invited experts will include people from the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, the Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras (a southern Arizona organization that also works in tandem with a local migrant shelter, and will offer insight on shifting policies from that on-the-ground perspective), as well as others to be determined.

The discussion thread will be for paid subscribers only. We are committed to offering as much of The Border Chronicle as we can free of charge. But as two freelance journalists we rely on paid subscriptions to keep the lights on. Please consider supporting The Border Chronicle with a subscription for just $6 a month or $60 annually (a deal!) and help us become sustainable in 2022. We appreciate ya!

“Lines of Life and Death”: A Podcast with Geographer Joseph Nevins on Global Apartheid and the Right to the World

Lauded border scholar Joseph Nevins dissects the global border apparatus, shows its parallels with South African apartheid, and calls for both freedom of movement and the right to stay home

Who has passports? Who can get visas? Which people have to risk their lives crossing lines, and who can fly and cross borders with ease? And what if heavily policed borders are actually a human rights violation? What would be the remedy to that?

In today’s podcast we welcome geographer Joseph Nevins to discuss all this. Joe is the author of two important books on border and immigration policing, Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War On “Illegals” and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary and Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid. He is a professor at Vassar College.

I have known Joe now for more than a decade, and over those years he has been a mentor, and inspired me with his insight, wisdom, and scholarship. Please join us in this conversation as we take a step back and unpack the global border apparatus, talk about global apartheid and the right to the world, and discuss what those “lines of life and death,” as Joe puts it, really mean.

The Border Chronicle is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Author
Todd Miller

Todd Miller is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of The Border Chronicle. He is the author of four books that examine border militarization and its externalization, surveillance technology and industry, climate change, and the search for alternatives. His books include Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019),  Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).

Todd’s forthcoming book is a deep examination of water as a border issue in an age of climate-induced heat waves and drought. It will be published by Seven Stories Press in 2027.

Besides The Border Chronicle, articles by Todd have appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, TomDispatch, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. He has also authored and co-authored reports on border surveillance, the border industrial complex, and climate change for the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, where he is a fellow.

Todd’s book Storming the Wall received the Izzy Award in 2018 for “path-breaking and in-depth reporting.” He also received first place in “Community immigration reporting” by the Arizona Press Club in 2013. Todd has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Journalism from Prescott College, where he is also an adjunct professor.

In his spare time, Todd likes to travel, read, philosophize, and hang out with his two kids—whether it be going to a dance recital or being a basketball coach.

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