Mining operations have been in the center of borderland labor conflicts for more than a century. These photos tell the moving story of one such town, through its cemetery.
The Trump Administration is destroying sacred sites for more border wall, a podcast on a new investigation into the massive surveillance tower opening in Ciudad Juárez, plus more events and news from the borderlands.
Torre Centinela, a Mexican surveillance hub that will share intelligence with U.S. and Texas law enforcement is slated to open soon. Olivares discusses his investigation on Torre Centinela and the private corporation running it.
How apocalyptic mass fantasies stoked by Hollywood and the media help fuel the border industrial complex
Right now there are more border walls on Earth than there have ever been in the planet’s history. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 there were 15, now there are 77 around the world. As border scholar Jenny Stümer says in the following podcast, “In order to build border walls you need the support of a lot of people, in order to get that you have to tap into a particular imaginary.” The narrative so often depicted in that imaginary is all over the movies and media: as the end of the world looms near, only a wall can “save us.”
You might recognize Jenny’s name from the open thread on “wall sickness” that we did here at The Border Chronicle on November 30. If you haven’t seen that yet, I strongly encourage you to go back and check it out, there was a wealth of information shared by Jenny and the other panelists. That open thread was inspired by a panel titled “The Psychological and Mental Dimensions of Border Walls” from a conference at the University of Quebec in Montreal in October.
Jenny works at the University of Heidelberg in the Käte Hamburger Center for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies. Besides being a border scholar, she has a PhD in film and media studies. Her book Walled Life: Concrete, Cinema, and Art (published earlier this year) brings that convergence of film and borders together, especially—as she will explain—in this age of catastrophic climate change.
In this conversation we begin with the media and movies and actors like Brad Pitt stopping zombie uprisings using border walls such as was the case in World War Z. That’s where we start, but after that our discussion goes deep and in multiple—and sometimes inspiring and revealing—directions.
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Torre Centinela, a Mexican surveillance hub that will share intelligence with U.S. and Texas law enforcement is slated to open soon. Olivares discusses his investigation on Torre Centinela and the private corporation running it.
Like environmental regulations, cultural-and historic-preservation laws are being systematically waived for wall construction—and border communities are paying the price.
Todd witnesses a border security spending frenzy at the annual Border Security Expo in Phoenix, a Q&A with the author of a new book on El Paso's importance to U.S. history and immigration, and much more!
Come get a glimpse of the inner workings of the border industrial complex with these photos, text, and a video tour of the exhibition hall at the end. You will also learn about the national border security awards and who won person of the year.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
