Colin Cox's Reviews > Against Borders: The Case for Abolition

Against Borders: The Case for Abolition is a sharp, thought-provoking primer that explores not only the argument for border abolition but also the ways borders function as a symbol for the interconnected forms of inequality and discrimination in our world. From gender to capitalism, policing to data collection, borders "follow people around, excluding them in various ways at different times, thus producing the precarity and disposability that characterises the migrant condition" (5). According to Gracie Mae Bradley and Luke de Noronha, the omnipresence of borders (and their sibling exclusionary mechanisms, like prisons) speaks to and facilitates their power. Therefore, the goal of border abolition is one grounded in the recognition of borders as deeply, unmistakably violent.

Advocating for border abolition is a proactive project that seeks to "cultivate new ways of caring for one another, nurturing forms of collectivity more conducive to human flourishing than the nation-states we currently inhabit" (10). While Against Borders: The Case for Abolition is, at times, utopian, it offers a cogent and timely analysis of the inequitable counters inherent to all borders.