Abstract

This paper argues that borders and violence against migrants no longer takes place exclusively at the geographical space between two sovereign territories. Instead border violence today has become much more normalized and diffused into society itself. An entire privatized industry now capitalizes on the cycle of transporting, incarcerating, hiring, and releasing non-status migrants. Similarly, however, resistance to this violence is also shifting from the older confrontation with sovereignty and the demands for rights to the larger aim of making the non-status migrant or nomad the new figure of political belonging and solidarity: demanding equality for all, regardless of status.