Reece Jones

University of Hawaii at Manoa, Geography, Faculty Member

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Reece Jones is a Professor of Geography at the University of Hawai'i and the author of Violent Borders and Border Walls.
Address: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~reecej/
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

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7 Books
29 Papers
5 Book Reviews

Books by Reece Jones

White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall

Borders and Mobility in South Asia and Beyond

by Reece Jones and Md Azmeary Ferdoush

Open Borders: In Defense of Free Movement

Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration

Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move

Placing the Border in Everyday Life

Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the United States, India, and Israel

Papers by Reece Jones

Rethinking borders, violence, and conflict: From sovereign power to borderscapes as sites of struggles

by Reece Jones and Chiara Brambilla

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2020

This article advances the understanding of borders with respect to their epistemological, ontolog... more This article advances the understanding of borders with respect to their epistemological, ontological , and empirical intersections with violence and conflict, which remain understudied within critical border studies. Specifically, the article explores the potential of recent interdisciplinary research on the border-migration nexus to find critical resources that might foster a better understanding of the complex relationships between borders, violence, and conflict. From this viewpoint, the border is not only a site of the founding violence of the sovereign power, but borders-reconceived as borderscapes-can also be regarded as a site of generative struggles where alternative subjectivities and agencies could be shaped. The article concludes with a call for an applied, committed, and engaged research capable of recovering its inherently political dimension moving towards a 'politics of hope' and beyond the simplistic yet dominant interpretations of the border-violence-conflict intersections, which are trapped in the 'politics of fear'.

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Interventions on the State of Sovereignty at the Border

by Reece Jones, Emily Gilbert, and Gabriel Popescu

Recent events have put human encounters with state sovereignty at borders under intense scrutiny ... more Recent events have put human encounters with state sovereignty at borders under intense scrutiny from governments, media, and academics alike. Over 40,000 people died attempting to cross a border from 2006 to 2015 and a record 65 million people were displaced by conflict around the world in 2015 (http:// missingmigrants.iom.int/). These 40,000 þ deaths are not the direct results of wars where humans become the casualties of stateto-state conflicts or internal strife. Rather, they are a consequence of states expanding the reach of their security and detention practices to capture, intercede, or make intentionally perilous the movements of people in search of better opportunitiesdor often just basic safety and human dignitydfor themselves and their family. There are almost 70 border walls around the world, up from 15 in 198915 in (Vallet, 2014, and these are just the most visible physical manifestations of what is much wider set of state practices to control movement such as deployments of more border guards, seaborne patrols, and investments in new technologies to monitor more comprehensively events within state space, at the edges of their territories, and beyond.

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Border militarisation and the re-articulation of sovereignty

This paper identifies a global trend towards hardened, militarised borders through the use of mil... more This paper identifies a global trend towards hardened, militarised borders through the use of military technologies, hardware and personnel. In contrast to claims of waning state sovereignty, drawing on detailed case studies from the United States and European Union, we argue the militarisation of borders represents a re-articulation and expansion of state sovereignty into new spaces and arenas. We argue that the nexus of military-security contractors, dramatically increased security budgets, and the discourse of threats from terrorism and immigration is resulting in a profound shift in border security. The construction of barriers, deployment of more personnel and the investment in a wide range of military and security technologies from drones to smart border technologies that attempt to monitor, identify and prevent unauthorised movements are emblematic of this shift. We link this increasing militarisation to dehumanisation of migrant others and to the increasing mortality in border spaces. By documenting this trend and identifying a range of different practices that are included under the rubric of militarisation, this paper is both a call for nuanced interpretation and more sustained investigation of the expansion of the military into the policing of borders.

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Interventions on Rethinking the 'Border' in Border Studies

Political Geography, 2011

The expansive understanding of borders and boundaries in recent scholarship has enriched border s... more The expansive understanding of borders and boundaries in recent scholarship has enriched border studies, but it has also obscured what a border is. This set of interventions is motivated by a need for a more sophisticated conceptualization of borders in light of the recent trajectories of border scholarship. In contrast to the much-feted "borderless world" of the early 1990s, the trend during the past decade has been to consider the exercise of state sovereignty at great distances from the border line itself as "bordering". Indeed, Balibar's (1998) notion that "borders are everywhere"dthat the sovereign state's loci of bordering practices can no longer be isolated to the lines of a political map of statesdhas gained tremendous currency but it is also quite a departure from traditional border studies. Thus the broad question posed to our contributors was: Where is the border in border studies?

The West Bank Wall

by Reece Jones and Christine Leuenberger

This introduction to the special issue sets out to bring some clarity and organization to the div... more This introduction to the special issue sets out to bring some clarity and organization to the diverse bodies of literature on the construction, lived experience, and consequences of the West Bank Wall. We review the literature on the Wall and identify three broad themes: the significance of the Wall in the context of political negotiations, its disruption of daily life in the West Bank, and its role as a symbol in broader debates about sovereignty, territory, and the state in border studies.

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Border Wars: Narratives and Images of the US-Mexico Border on TV

ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographers, 2014

This paper analyzes the visual and narrative representation of the US-Mexico border in the Nation... more This paper analyzes the visual and narrative representation of the US-Mexico border in the National Geographic television show "Border Wars." The show is significant because it brings the hidden and often opaque borderlands into the homes of millions of Americans, and viewers around the world, every week. It transforms the unknown space of the border into a series of images and stories that create a coherent narrative for the viewer. The representation of the border emphasizes threat and danger through the constant repetition of particular phrases (terrorism, war, cartel foot soldiers) and images (guns, high-speed chases, Black Hawk helicopters, Predator drones). Despite the militaristic lead-ins to each episode, the dramatic music, and the heightened drama of the storytelling, in the end most of the episodes present a more prosaic border landscape of poor migrant workers looking for a better life. This disjuncture between the official narrative of the border and the images of what happens in the show provide a crucial insight into the role popular geopolitical narratives play in creating a version of reality and convincing the public that the 'problem' of the border needs a securitized and militarized response.

format_quoteThe show emphasizes themes of guilt and violence, depicting immigrants as potential threats while valorizing Border Patrol agents contradictorily.format_quote

Spaces of Refusal: Rethinking Sovereign Power and Resistance at the Border

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2012

Categories, borders and boundaries

Progress in Human Geography, 2009

In recent years, categories have been a topic of substantial research in the social sciences and ... more In recent years, categories have been a topic of substantial research in the social sciences and humanities. Although many problematic categories such as culture, gender and scale have been criticized, moving beyond them has proved to be surprisingly diffi cult. This paper attributes this diffi culty to what is termed the paradox of categories and argues that the key problems with categories emerge from the contradictory ways their boundaries are intellectually and cognitively understood. By integrating poststructural insights into the role categories play in ordering modern society with research from cognitive science on the role categories play as containers in cognitive processes, this paper argues that the boundaries of categories should be understood as always inchoate -only partially formed and incomplete. The paper concludes that research into categories and boundaries is unnecessarily fragmented across a wide range of disciplines and proposes expanding boundary studies in geography to be the fi eld that investigates the bounding processes that result in all types of categories.

Teichopolitics: Rethinking globalization through the Role of Walls and Fences

by Reece Jones and Stephane ROSIERE

Geopolitics, 2012

format_quote41,000 km of terrestrial 'closed borders' were identified, with three-quarters initiated post-2000, highlighting a significant trend in border hardening.format_quote

The Geopolitics of Humanitarian Intervention

Arab World Geographer, 2013

This article analyzes the geopolitical narratives produced by France, the United Kingdom, and the... more This article analyzes the geopolitical narratives produced by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 15 February through 18 March 2011 as a humanitarian intervention in Libya was debated. We analyzed 146 statements and press releases, as well as official documents including the United Nations Charter, the Genocide Convention, and the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), to gauge how the intervention was justified and how it was situated within the broader framework of humanitarianism. We argue that the thresholds for intervention are not well articulated and that the differences between the situation in Libya, which required an intervention, and others such as Bahrain, Darfur, or Syria that did not are unclear. The lack of thresholds and consistency creates a situation in which particular countries can use the cover of humanitarianism to legitimate an effort to remove a troublesome regime. Cet article analyse les récits géopolitiques produits par la France, le Royaume-Uni et les États-Unis du 15 février au 18 mars 2011, durant le débat sur l'intervention humanitaire en Libye. Nous avons analysé 146 déclarations et communiqués de presse, ainsi que des documents officiels, y compris la Charte des Nations-Unies, la Convention sur le génocide et la doctrine de la responsabilité de protéger (R2P), pour comprendre la façon dont l'intervention était justifiée et comment elle a été positionnée dans le cadre plus large de l'humanitarisme. Nous soutenons que les seuils d'intervention ne sont pas bien définis et que les différences existant entre la situation en Libye, qui nécessitait une intervention, et d'autres situations telles celles au Bahreïn, au Darfour ou en Syrie, ne sont pas claires. L'absence de seuils et de cohérence crée une situation dans laquelle certains pays peuvent utiliser le prétexte d'une action humanitaire pour légitimer l'élimination d'un régime gênant.

format_quoteUN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized military intervention in Libya after fears of mass casualties, passing with 10-0 vote but notable abstentions.format_quote

Geopolitical boundary narratives, the global war on terror and border fencing in India

Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2009

This article investigates how expansive new security projects have gained both legitimacy and imm... more This article investigates how expansive new security projects have gained both legitimacy and immediacy as part of the 'global war on terror' by analysing the process that led to the fencing and securitising of the border between India and Bangladesh. The framing of the 'enemy other' in the global war on terror relies on two crucial shifts from previous geopolitical boundary narratives. First, the enemy other is described as not only being violent but also as outside the boundaries of modernity. Second, the enemy other is represented as posing a global and interconnected threat that is no longer limited by geography. These two shifts are used to justify the new preventative responses of pre-emptive military action abroad and the securitisation of the borders of the state. This article argues that in India the good and evil framing of the global war on terror was mapped onto longstanding communal distinctions between Hindus and Muslims. In the process, Pakistan, Bangladesh and increasingly Muslims generally are described as violent, irrational and a threat to the security of the Indian state. These changes led to a profound shift in the borderlands of the Indian state of West Bengal, where fencing and securitising the border with Bangladesh was previously resisted, but now is deemed essential. The article concludes that the framing of the war on terror as a global and interconnected problem has allowed sovereign states to consolidate power and move substantially closer to the territorial ideal of a closed and bounded container of an orderly population by attempting to lock down political borders.

Sovereignty and statelessness in the border enclaves of India and Bangladesh

Political Geography, 2009

This article investigates the 198 political enclaves along the northern section of the border bet... more This article investigates the 198 political enclaves along the northern section of the border between India and Bangladesh. The enclaves are a remnant of the partition of British India in 1947 and are effectively stateless spaces because most are small and located several kilometers within their host country, which has prevented any administrative contact with their home country. Drawing on interviews with current enclave residents, this article describes the creation of the enclaves and analyzes the disputes that prevented their normalization over the past 60 years. The enclaves provide an important site for scrutinizing the connections between bordering practices and sovereignty claims. They also demonstrate both the social benefits the sovereign state system has brought through the establishment of law and order and the devastating consequences it has caused by territorializing those basic social protections. The article concludes that the failure to exchange the enclaves displays the powerful role nationalist homeland narratives play in institutionalizing the concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity, often at the expense of human rights.

Agents of exception: border security and the marginalization of Muslims in India

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2009

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