Pluto Press Deepening Divides: How Physical Borders and Social Boundaries Delineate our World (Anthropology, Culture and Society)

At a glance, 'borders' and 'boundaries' may seem synonymous. But in the real (geopolitical) world, they coexist as distinct, albeit overlapping entities: the former a state's delimitation of territory; the latter the social delineation of differences. The refugee crisis in Europe showed how racial and ethnic boundaries are often instrumentalised to justify the strengthening of state borders - regardless of the cost in human life. But there are other, less tragic, examples that illustrate this overlapping as well, and ultimately demonstrate that the oft-differentiated spheres of borders and boundaries are best understood through their relationship to one another. Deepening Divides explores this relationship from many distinct perspectives and national contexts, with case studies covering five continents and drawing on anthropology, gender studies, law, political science and sociology for a truly interdisciplinary collection. Review "'This volume is the first to bring together two distinct phenomena usually studied in separate strands of research: how migration regimes police the territorial boundaries of states, and how differentiating between and discriminating against minority groups creates social boundaries within states. An important and timely intellectual move'" - Andreas Wimmer, author of 'Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Networks, Power' About the Author Didier Fassin is the James D. Wolfensohn Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He is the author of numerous books including The Will to Punish (2018), Life: A Critical Users Manual (2018), Prison Worlds: An Ethnography of the Carceral Condition (2016) and Enforcing Order: An Ethnography of Urban Policing.