What do you think?
Rate this book
Anarchist Intervention Series #6
Undoing Border Imperialism
"Harsha Walia has played a central role in building some of North America’s most innovative, diverse, and effective new movements. That this brilliant organizer and theorist has found time to share her wisdom in this book is a tremendous gift to us all."
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
Undoing Border Imperialism combines academic discourse, lived experiences of displacement, and movement-based practices into an exciting new book. By reformulating immigrant rights movements within a transnational analysis of capitalism, labor exploitation, settler colonialism, state building, and racialized empire, it provides the alternative conceptual frameworks of border imperialism and decolonization. Drawing on the author’s experiences in No One Is Illegal, this work offers relevant insights for all social movement organizers on effective strategies to overcome the barriers and borders within movements in order to cultivate fierce, loving, and sustainable communities of resistance striving toward liberation. The author grounds the book in collective vision, with short contributions from over twenty organizers and writers from across North America.
"Border imperialism is an apt conceptualization for capturing the politics of massive displacement due to capitalist neoglobalization. Within the wealthy countries, Canada’s No One Is Illegal is one of the most effective organizations of migrants and allies. Walia is an outstanding organizer who has done a lot of thinking and can write—not a common combination. Besides being brilliantly conceived and presented, this book is the first extended work on immigration that refuses to make First Nations sovereignty invisible."
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Indians of the Americas and Blood on the Border
"Harsha Walia’s Undoing Border Imperialism demonstrates that geography has certainly not ended, nor has the urge for people to stretch out our arms across borders to create our communities. One of the most rewarding things about this book is its capaciousness—astute insights that emerge out of careful organizing linked to the voices of a generation of strugglers, trying to find their own analysis to build their own movements to make this world our own. This is both a manual and a memoir, a guide to the world and a guide to the organizer’s heart."
—Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
"This book belongs in every wannabe revolutionary’s war backpack. I addictively jumped all over its contents: a radical mixtape of ancestral wisdoms to present-day-grounded organizers theorizing about their own experiences. A must for me is Walia’s decision to infuse this volume’s fight against border imperialism, white supremacy, and empire with the vulnerability of her own personal narrative. This book is a breath of fresh air and offers an urgently needed movement-based praxis. Undoing Border Imperialism is too hot to be sitting on bookshelves; it will help make the revolution."
—Ashanti Alston, Black Panther elder and former political prisoner
Other Contributors: Yogi Acharya, Carmen Aguirre, Tara Atluri, Annie Banks, Mel Bazil, Nazila Bettache, Adil Charkaoui, Yen Chu, Karen Cocq, Jessica Danforth, Ruby Smith Diaz, Nassim Elbardouh, Craig Fortier, Harjap Grewal, Mostafa Henaway, Freda Huson, Syed Khalid Hussan, Jane Kirby, Aylwin Lo, Karla Lottini, Alex Mah, Robyn Maynard, Graciela Flores Mendez, Cecily Nicholson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Toghestiy, Sozan Savehilaghi, Mac Scott, Lily Shinde, and Rafeef Ziadah.
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
Undoing Border Imperialism combines academic discourse, lived experiences of displacement, and movement-based practices into an exciting new book. By reformulating immigrant rights movements within a transnational analysis of capitalism, labor exploitation, settler colonialism, state building, and racialized empire, it provides the alternative conceptual frameworks of border imperialism and decolonization. Drawing on the author’s experiences in No One Is Illegal, this work offers relevant insights for all social movement organizers on effective strategies to overcome the barriers and borders within movements in order to cultivate fierce, loving, and sustainable communities of resistance striving toward liberation. The author grounds the book in collective vision, with short contributions from over twenty organizers and writers from across North America.
"Border imperialism is an apt conceptualization for capturing the politics of massive displacement due to capitalist neoglobalization. Within the wealthy countries, Canada’s No One Is Illegal is one of the most effective organizations of migrants and allies. Walia is an outstanding organizer who has done a lot of thinking and can write—not a common combination. Besides being brilliantly conceived and presented, this book is the first extended work on immigration that refuses to make First Nations sovereignty invisible."
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Indians of the Americas and Blood on the Border
"Harsha Walia’s Undoing Border Imperialism demonstrates that geography has certainly not ended, nor has the urge for people to stretch out our arms across borders to create our communities. One of the most rewarding things about this book is its capaciousness—astute insights that emerge out of careful organizing linked to the voices of a generation of strugglers, trying to find their own analysis to build their own movements to make this world our own. This is both a manual and a memoir, a guide to the world and a guide to the organizer’s heart."
—Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
"This book belongs in every wannabe revolutionary’s war backpack. I addictively jumped all over its contents: a radical mixtape of ancestral wisdoms to present-day-grounded organizers theorizing about their own experiences. A must for me is Walia’s decision to infuse this volume’s fight against border imperialism, white supremacy, and empire with the vulnerability of her own personal narrative. This book is a breath of fresh air and offers an urgently needed movement-based praxis. Undoing Border Imperialism is too hot to be sitting on bookshelves; it will help make the revolution."
—Ashanti Alston, Black Panther elder and former political prisoner
Other Contributors: Yogi Acharya, Carmen Aguirre, Tara Atluri, Annie Banks, Mel Bazil, Nazila Bettache, Adil Charkaoui, Yen Chu, Karen Cocq, Jessica Danforth, Ruby Smith Diaz, Nassim Elbardouh, Craig Fortier, Harjap Grewal, Mostafa Henaway, Freda Huson, Syed Khalid Hussan, Jane Kirby, Aylwin Lo, Karla Lottini, Alex Mah, Robyn Maynard, Graciela Flores Mendez, Cecily Nicholson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Toghestiy, Sozan Savehilaghi, Mac Scott, Lily Shinde, and Rafeef Ziadah.
340 pages, Paperback
First published November 12, 2013
About the author
Harsha Walia
10 books238 followersHarsha Walia is an author and activist who is formally trained in the law. She immigrated from India and currently resides in Vancouver, on the lands of the Indigenous Coast Salish people, and works as an advocate in the poorest postal code in Canada.
Harsha has been named one of the most influential South Asians in BC by the Vancouver Sun and one of the ten most popular left-wing journalists by the Georgia Straight in 2010. Award-winning author Naomi Klein has called Harsha “one of Canada’s most brilliant and effective political organizers.” She is the winner of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives "Power of Youth" award.
Harsha's writings have appeared in over fifty academic journals, anthologies, and magazines, including Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, Dominion, Feministing, Fuze, Left Turn, Mondoweiss, People of Color Organize, Rabble, Racilicious, Sanhati, Z Magazine, and others. She has contributed essays to academic journals including Race and Class, as well as chapters in the anthologies Power of Youth: Youth and community-led activism in Canada; Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance; Beyond Walls and Cages; Stay Solid; Broken Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution; Organize! Building from the Local for Global Justice, and the Winter We Danced.
As an activist, Harsha is a cofounder of the migrant justice group No One Is Illegal and the progressive South Asian network Radical Desis. She is also an organizer in the Annual Women’s Memorial March Committee, Defenders of the Land Network, Housing Justice Coalition, and sits on the boards of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy as well as Shit Harper Did. She is a youth mentor for Check Your Head and an editorial collective member at Feminist Wire. Harsha has made a number of presentations to the United Nations on social and economic justice issues and is a commentator and speaker at conferences, campuses, and media outlets across North America.
Harsha has been named one of the most influential South Asians in BC by the Vancouver Sun and one of the ten most popular left-wing journalists by the Georgia Straight in 2010. Award-winning author Naomi Klein has called Harsha “one of Canada’s most brilliant and effective political organizers.” She is the winner of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives "Power of Youth" award.
Harsha's writings have appeared in over fifty academic journals, anthologies, and magazines, including Briarpatch, Canadian Dimension, Dominion, Feministing, Fuze, Left Turn, Mondoweiss, People of Color Organize, Rabble, Racilicious, Sanhati, Z Magazine, and others. She has contributed essays to academic journals including Race and Class, as well as chapters in the anthologies Power of Youth: Youth and community-led activism in Canada; Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance; Beyond Walls and Cages; Stay Solid; Broken Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution; Organize! Building from the Local for Global Justice, and the Winter We Danced.
As an activist, Harsha is a cofounder of the migrant justice group No One Is Illegal and the progressive South Asian network Radical Desis. She is also an organizer in the Annual Women’s Memorial March Committee, Defenders of the Land Network, Housing Justice Coalition, and sits on the boards of the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy as well as Shit Harper Did. She is a youth mentor for Check Your Head and an editorial collective member at Feminist Wire. Harsha has made a number of presentations to the United Nations on social and economic justice issues and is a commentator and speaker at conferences, campuses, and media outlets across North America.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
January 5, 2021
One of the most revolutionary and powerful nonfiction books about social justice I have ever read. I would without doubt recommend Undoing Border Imperialism to those who want to elevate their views pertaining to immigration justice beyond the liberal notion of immigration reform. Harsha Walia grasps this issue at the root and delves deep into the importance of dismantling both borders and imperialism from existing at all. Here is a quote that I feel like summarizes main concepts within Undoing Border Imperialism:
“Border imperialism encapsulates four overlapping and concurrent structurings: first, the mass displacement of impoverished and colonized communities resulting from asymmetrical relations of global power, and the simultaneous securitization of the border against those migrants whom capitalism and empire have displaced; second, the criminalization of migration with severe punishment and discipline of those deemed ‘alien’ or ‘illegal’; third, the entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship by arbitrating who legitimately constitutes the nation-state; and fourth, the state-mediated exploitation of migrant labor, akin to conditions of slavery and servitude, by capitalist interests. While borders are understood as lines demarcating territory, an analysis of border imperialism interrogates the modes and networks of governance that determine how bodies will be included within the nation-state, and how territory will be controlled within and in conjunction with the dictates of global empire and transnational capitalism.”
Walia includes so many compelling ideas grounded within an intersectional framework, including: the racialization of immigrants and immigrants of color, the weaponization of femininity against male immigrants of color, the recruitment of poor Black, Indigenous, People of Color into the military to further perpetuate imperialism, and more. The format of this book exemplifies its commitment to decolonization, too. Walia incorporates the narratives and the wisdom of various activists and on-the-ground movement organizers, highlighting the necessity of collective action and community care. Again, recommended for those who want to start off their 2021 with some high-quality nonfiction.
“Border imperialism encapsulates four overlapping and concurrent structurings: first, the mass displacement of impoverished and colonized communities resulting from asymmetrical relations of global power, and the simultaneous securitization of the border against those migrants whom capitalism and empire have displaced; second, the criminalization of migration with severe punishment and discipline of those deemed ‘alien’ or ‘illegal’; third, the entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship by arbitrating who legitimately constitutes the nation-state; and fourth, the state-mediated exploitation of migrant labor, akin to conditions of slavery and servitude, by capitalist interests. While borders are understood as lines demarcating territory, an analysis of border imperialism interrogates the modes and networks of governance that determine how bodies will be included within the nation-state, and how territory will be controlled within and in conjunction with the dictates of global empire and transnational capitalism.”
Walia includes so many compelling ideas grounded within an intersectional framework, including: the racialization of immigrants and immigrants of color, the weaponization of femininity against male immigrants of color, the recruitment of poor Black, Indigenous, People of Color into the military to further perpetuate imperialism, and more. The format of this book exemplifies its commitment to decolonization, too. Walia incorporates the narratives and the wisdom of various activists and on-the-ground movement organizers, highlighting the necessity of collective action and community care. Again, recommended for those who want to start off their 2021 with some high-quality nonfiction.
January 17, 2021
4.5 Walia synthesises swirling frameworks of social justice, shares practical aspects of activism, and calls on us to overgrow the logics of capitalism and colonialism.
Border imperialism is structured by, first, the free flow of Western capital and plunder which creates mass displacements, while simultaneously securing Western borders against the very people who capitalism and empire have dispossessed and impoverished; second, criminalizing migrants through their construction as deviants and illegals, which also ensures profits for companies that receive contracts for border militarization and migrant detention; third, the entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship by arbitrating who legitimately constitutes the nation-state; and fourth, the legal denial of permanent residency to a growing number of migrants to ensure a precarious, exploitable, and expendable pool of labor.
February 2, 2013
This is an incredibly important book being published at an incredibly important time. As the migrant justice movement starts to get off the ground in the US and the imperial states that have colonized Turtle Island continue to detain, repress, regulate and displace people - both migrants and indigenous peoples within their own borders and people around the world from whom they continue to steal land, labor, resources and capital, we need to build a movement that centers the voices of migrants working for the liberation of their own communities, connects border imperialism to the interlocking set of oppressions manifested by the imperial state (particularly the colonization of land upon which these states are founded) and centers tactics of direct action and grassroots movement building that will ultimately create the community power necessary to overthrow these regimes. This book can help to write these values and methodlogies into the genetic codes of our movements. As a white settler and a citizen of an imperial north american state, I am especially grateful to Harsha Walia for her time and energy both in writing this book and in organizing on the ground to build a movement that will ultimately abolish every "dividing wall of hostility," every form of colonial, racial, economic and gendered apartheid that currently mark the social bodies of human beings. I cannot wait to read this book and share it with others.
September 20, 2019
Excellent and very accessible short book that uses first person testimonies, essays, poetry and movement based practices & history to give much needed critical analysis on border regime, settler colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. Harsha is absolutely brilliant and this is a much needed book for our movements to reflect on and move towards collectively doing better. Highly recommend.
January 23, 2017
This book interrogates the ways that state borders function as an imperialistic and colonial tool of not only governments, but neoliberal capitalist interest from the perspective of No One Is Illegal (a Canadian pro-immigrant group). The book is written in fairly easy to understand language, which does not divulge into academic jargon. Any person at an adult reading level should be able to pick up this book and read it. This is important, as it opens up the text to a wide audience who can benefit, learn, and become motivated from the message of the book. The text is split into five chapters which look at aspects of border imperialism from different angles. The first looks at the issue from an academic perspective, the second explores the genesis and examination of the policies and procedures of No One Is Illegal, the third examines a variety of tactics that have been used to undermine oppressive immigration practices, the fourth examines these issues from a variety of perspectives via a roundtable format, and the fifth introduces principles of decolonization. I give more in depth explanations of each of these chapters below.
One of the most touching aspects of the book is that, throughout the text, there are sprinkled 13 personal narratives relating to experiences with the immigration system and NOII. These narratives offer anecdotal accounts of the emotional and physical stress, pain, and strength behind NOII and other decolonization groups. These stories were my favourite part of the text.
The first chapter takes an academic look at the ways that borders function within a neoliberal mindset. The border functions to promote migrants as illegal, which ultimately others and dismisses migrant humanity. We tend to ignore the imperial factors that tend to lead to migration – climate change is a large factor (estimates suggest that there will be over 50 million climate refugees worldwide by 2020), but so too does subsidized commercial farming, which undercuts the prices of farmers in many countries, forcing them to abandon their practice (and move into cities, seeking work). Thus, Western states are often responsible for migrants, but are unwilling to 1. take responsibility for their actions; and 2. allow refugees to enter into their states. Instead, they demonize these refugees and asylum seekers as "illegals", incarcerating them in dangerous facilities. Furthermore, capital appropriates these workers (both in form of illegal workers, and in oppressive work environments abroad) in order to produce cheap goods. The illegalities imposed on migrant populations makes them docile for the interests of capital. It is interesting that neoliberal capitalism is able to freely flow between borders, while people are not. The entire creation of borders is oppressive, and constructed by Western hegemonic economic interest.
The second chapter explores the group No One Is Illegal. It goes through the ways that NOII acts within various heterogenous spheres of activism (from fight illegalities in systems of immigration, to fighting for indigenous struggles, to womyn's rights, etc). It marks out an anecdotal (and to some degree structural) account of the strengths of NOII, and the influence it has had in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. They show a commitment to direct support on the basis of solidarity – not charity – within a horizontal field. They describe their organizing as "the politics of linking movements to the everyday experiences of oppressed peoples and inviting these communities to take leadership" (digital edition). In doing so, they created meshworks of oppressed peoples who were then able to fight oppression together, rather than on their own. This has led to movements stressing decolonization and the displacement of hierarchical structures of power. It includes a chronological list of resistance movements and successes of NOII.
The third chapter serves as an extension of the second, but explores the various tactics that can be used in the fights against systematic oppression in hierarchical systems. They go through various theoretical strategies and tactics and show how these have been used by groups such as NOII to fight back against oppressive systematic and governmental forces. This includes how to build alliances with groups that are ideologically opposed, which knowing when to push for practical goals over long term purity and understanding how to stratal that line (of revolution v. reform) effectively. Other tactics include transforming narrative around "illegalities" into narratives about undocumented workers. This can lead to a diversity of tactics rather than a uniform position. There is also a section on oppression, and a nuanced discussion of how oppression goes beyond intersectionality. The end goal is effective movement building that is grounded in the lived experience of undocumented peoples in order to empower marginalized communities towards permanent positive change. In this they provide an alternative to the authoritarian leninist and meshwork anarchist models (where non-hierarchical is not synonymous with structureless).
The fourth chapter continues the discussions touched on in earlier chapters, but through a multiplicity of voices in a round table discussion. This serves to bring more diverse perspectives on the subjects of border colonialism and oppression using a non-hierarchical method. 15 participants from multiple organizations within Canada offer insight into 6 questions posed to them by the author. The questions relate to the material earlier in the book, and provides some overlap from different perspectives.
The fifth chapter looks specifically at decolonization as a strategy against Border imperialism. The text defines decolonization as, in part, "a dual form of resistance that is responsive to dismantle current systems of colonial empire and systemic hierarchies, while also prefiguring societies based on equity, mutual aid, and self-determination." It is both a process of deterritorialization, as well as a goal to be reached. The chapter goes on to explain what decolonization is, and explores how we might begin to proceed in its efforts. It requires an indigenous starting point, and pushes towards the reimagining and reconfiguration of "our communities based on shared ideals and visions." Freedom will never exist within the bounds of colonial imperialism. It can only occur through a decolonization strategy that breaks free of the confines of colonial capitalism. This also requires the decolonization of hierarchical social relations to develop a more egalitarian relational model.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in taking a deeper look at the policies and politics surrounding immigration. This text puts forward ways that NOII has pushed back against oppressive immigration policies in Canada, and accounts for a variety of different tactics of that process. It also provides insight on the reasons that these movements are necessary, for anyone who is wary of groups such as NOII. Overall, I appreciate this text, and was thankful that I was able to read it. It helped to open my mind to the struggle of undocumented migrants in Canada who face severe hardship from the Canadian government and immigration offices within the country.
One of the most touching aspects of the book is that, throughout the text, there are sprinkled 13 personal narratives relating to experiences with the immigration system and NOII. These narratives offer anecdotal accounts of the emotional and physical stress, pain, and strength behind NOII and other decolonization groups. These stories were my favourite part of the text.
The first chapter takes an academic look at the ways that borders function within a neoliberal mindset. The border functions to promote migrants as illegal, which ultimately others and dismisses migrant humanity. We tend to ignore the imperial factors that tend to lead to migration – climate change is a large factor (estimates suggest that there will be over 50 million climate refugees worldwide by 2020), but so too does subsidized commercial farming, which undercuts the prices of farmers in many countries, forcing them to abandon their practice (and move into cities, seeking work). Thus, Western states are often responsible for migrants, but are unwilling to 1. take responsibility for their actions; and 2. allow refugees to enter into their states. Instead, they demonize these refugees and asylum seekers as "illegals", incarcerating them in dangerous facilities. Furthermore, capital appropriates these workers (both in form of illegal workers, and in oppressive work environments abroad) in order to produce cheap goods. The illegalities imposed on migrant populations makes them docile for the interests of capital. It is interesting that neoliberal capitalism is able to freely flow between borders, while people are not. The entire creation of borders is oppressive, and constructed by Western hegemonic economic interest.
The second chapter explores the group No One Is Illegal. It goes through the ways that NOII acts within various heterogenous spheres of activism (from fight illegalities in systems of immigration, to fighting for indigenous struggles, to womyn's rights, etc). It marks out an anecdotal (and to some degree structural) account of the strengths of NOII, and the influence it has had in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. They show a commitment to direct support on the basis of solidarity – not charity – within a horizontal field. They describe their organizing as "the politics of linking movements to the everyday experiences of oppressed peoples and inviting these communities to take leadership" (digital edition). In doing so, they created meshworks of oppressed peoples who were then able to fight oppression together, rather than on their own. This has led to movements stressing decolonization and the displacement of hierarchical structures of power. It includes a chronological list of resistance movements and successes of NOII.
The third chapter serves as an extension of the second, but explores the various tactics that can be used in the fights against systematic oppression in hierarchical systems. They go through various theoretical strategies and tactics and show how these have been used by groups such as NOII to fight back against oppressive systematic and governmental forces. This includes how to build alliances with groups that are ideologically opposed, which knowing when to push for practical goals over long term purity and understanding how to stratal that line (of revolution v. reform) effectively. Other tactics include transforming narrative around "illegalities" into narratives about undocumented workers. This can lead to a diversity of tactics rather than a uniform position. There is also a section on oppression, and a nuanced discussion of how oppression goes beyond intersectionality. The end goal is effective movement building that is grounded in the lived experience of undocumented peoples in order to empower marginalized communities towards permanent positive change. In this they provide an alternative to the authoritarian leninist and meshwork anarchist models (where non-hierarchical is not synonymous with structureless).
The fourth chapter continues the discussions touched on in earlier chapters, but through a multiplicity of voices in a round table discussion. This serves to bring more diverse perspectives on the subjects of border colonialism and oppression using a non-hierarchical method. 15 participants from multiple organizations within Canada offer insight into 6 questions posed to them by the author. The questions relate to the material earlier in the book, and provides some overlap from different perspectives.
The fifth chapter looks specifically at decolonization as a strategy against Border imperialism. The text defines decolonization as, in part, "a dual form of resistance that is responsive to dismantle current systems of colonial empire and systemic hierarchies, while also prefiguring societies based on equity, mutual aid, and self-determination." It is both a process of deterritorialization, as well as a goal to be reached. The chapter goes on to explain what decolonization is, and explores how we might begin to proceed in its efforts. It requires an indigenous starting point, and pushes towards the reimagining and reconfiguration of "our communities based on shared ideals and visions." Freedom will never exist within the bounds of colonial imperialism. It can only occur through a decolonization strategy that breaks free of the confines of colonial capitalism. This also requires the decolonization of hierarchical social relations to develop a more egalitarian relational model.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in taking a deeper look at the policies and politics surrounding immigration. This text puts forward ways that NOII has pushed back against oppressive immigration policies in Canada, and accounts for a variety of different tactics of that process. It also provides insight on the reasons that these movements are necessary, for anyone who is wary of groups such as NOII. Overall, I appreciate this text, and was thankful that I was able to read it. It helped to open my mind to the struggle of undocumented migrants in Canada who face severe hardship from the Canadian government and immigration offices within the country.
December 31, 2021
"Migrants, particularly undocumented migrants or asylum seekers arriving irregularly, are punished, locked up, and deported for the very act of migration. In order to justify their incarceration, the state has to allege some kind of criminal or illegal act. Within common discourses, the victim of this criminal act is the state, and the alleged assault is on its borders. The state becomes a tangible entity, with its own personhood and boundaries that must not be violated. Butler describes the policing of the state and its national subject as a "relentlessly aggressive" and "masculinist" project. Within this concept of sexualized nationhood, borders are engendered as
needing protection, or as cultural theorist Katrina Schlunke puts it, "vulnerable shores that must be kept intact and secured against the threat of un-negotiated penetration by strangers."
By invoking the state itself as a victim, migrants themselves are cast as illegals and criminals who are committing an act of assault on the state. Migrants become prisoners of passage; their unauthorized migration is considered a trespass, and their very existence is criminalized."
"The power of state control and the insidious nature of racism force us to metabolize our own oppression, and many of us become "the good Indian" or "good immigrant" who is silent, complicit, and grateful to the colonial master."
"Migrants, many once Indigenous to their own lands, but often displaced due to Orientalist crusading and corporate plundering, are thrown into capitalism’s pool of labor and, in a cruel twist, violently inserted into the political economy of genocide: stolen labor on stolen land."
"Even an intersectional approach that acknowledges the overlapping and layered nature of power and privilege can lead to a flattening of all oppressions—a simple "additive effect" rather than "entirely different conceptions of people’s lived realities."
needing protection, or as cultural theorist Katrina Schlunke puts it, "vulnerable shores that must be kept intact and secured against the threat of un-negotiated penetration by strangers."
By invoking the state itself as a victim, migrants themselves are cast as illegals and criminals who are committing an act of assault on the state. Migrants become prisoners of passage; their unauthorized migration is considered a trespass, and their very existence is criminalized."
"The power of state control and the insidious nature of racism force us to metabolize our own oppression, and many of us become "the good Indian" or "good immigrant" who is silent, complicit, and grateful to the colonial master."
"Migrants, many once Indigenous to their own lands, but often displaced due to Orientalist crusading and corporate plundering, are thrown into capitalism’s pool of labor and, in a cruel twist, violently inserted into the political economy of genocide: stolen labor on stolen land."
"Even an intersectional approach that acknowledges the overlapping and layered nature of power and privilege can lead to a flattening of all oppressions—a simple "additive effect" rather than "entirely different conceptions of people’s lived realities."
June 27, 2015
"We also must never underestimate the power of narrative storytelling, which is at the heart of our movements. We are not moved by dry statistics but rather by the stories that touch us and compel us to act."
A brilliant, inclusive, expansive, necessary book that will introduce you to or reawaken alternative thought patterns. It is easy for some of us to glide along in our culture with day to day living and forget that our hierarchical, consumerist society is predicated on violence against people and the earth; on dispossessing people home and abroad, driving migration; on cheap, expendable labor and goods; on a foundation of exploitation and colonialism.
Undoing Border Imperialism not only challenges but provides alternative ways to organize, interact, and live based on non-hierarchical, realistic ways of being. This isn't just one person's academic book either, but a conglomeration of her analysis and experience, the many authors and activists she cites, the contributions from dozens of others, and a history of the No One is Illegal movement in Canada. She even begins the book with fictional vignettes from various people (after the introduction).
I especially liked the places where she brings up contentious issues that often drive movements apart and presents ways to side-step the no-win confrontation and instead move forward without covering up oppression or ignoring realities.
Highly recommended. As in, go read it now.
A brilliant, inclusive, expansive, necessary book that will introduce you to or reawaken alternative thought patterns. It is easy for some of us to glide along in our culture with day to day living and forget that our hierarchical, consumerist society is predicated on violence against people and the earth; on dispossessing people home and abroad, driving migration; on cheap, expendable labor and goods; on a foundation of exploitation and colonialism.
Undoing Border Imperialism not only challenges but provides alternative ways to organize, interact, and live based on non-hierarchical, realistic ways of being. This isn't just one person's academic book either, but a conglomeration of her analysis and experience, the many authors and activists she cites, the contributions from dozens of others, and a history of the No One is Illegal movement in Canada. She even begins the book with fictional vignettes from various people (after the introduction).
I especially liked the places where she brings up contentious issues that often drive movements apart and presents ways to side-step the no-win confrontation and instead move forward without covering up oppression or ignoring realities.
Highly recommended. As in, go read it now.
January 4, 2024
The thing about borders is that they seem so rational and logical – an imaginary line on the world that demarcates one political space (a state, more recently a nation-state) from another. One of the major issues, for me, with borders is that despite their artificiality they acquire a sense of being absolute and inviolable, a condition made worse by the added layer of cultural demarcation gives them extra significance and political weightiness. There are, of course, other borders that matter, but for Harsha Walia, in this fabulous book, it is national borders that matter.
Her case is compelling, and grounded in struggles over refugee rights where she works from the well-established view that the mobility of capital is at odds with the immobility of labour – that is capital, including production and consumption, moves easily across borders, people do not, resulting in a myth of Western benevolence. The ‘border imperialism’ approach however undermines that myth through an approach that rests on four overlapping factors:
1) “the mass displacement of impoverished and colonized communities resulting from asymmetrical relations of global power, and the simultaneous securitization of the border against those migrants whom capitalism and empire have displaced;
2) “the criminalization of migration with severe punishment and discipline of those deemed ‘illegal’ or ‘alien’;
3) “the entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship by arbitrating who legitimately constitutes the nation-state;
4) “the state-mediated exploitation of migrant labour, akin to conditions of slavery and servitude by capitalist interests.” (p5)
The effect of the focus on these factors then is less an emphasis on the border itself and more an exploration of the systems that determine who is ‘allowed in’, who becomes a member of the state. Walia is clear, that means that relations of colonialism are essential to understanding border imperialism, including settler colonialism, in that those systems determining nation membership are inseparable from those shaping the condition of Indigenous peoples.
Walia focuses on the coalition of groups across Canada that make up the ‘No One Is Illegal’ network, each with its own flavour, drawing on her engagements with two of the groups and calling on voices from across the network to craft a movement-based analysis and theory. She builds the case in four stages. The first is an exploration, drawing on scholarly and movement-based analyses, of what border imperialism means. She then moves on to look at the work and activities of NOII, groups and individuals they work with, and the strategic and tactical approaches is adopts. In the third section, she builds an outline of the movement theory that shapes NOII – clarity about strategy and tactics, making sure to maintain anti-oppression work, working with particular non-hierarchical and inclusive structures and forms of leadership, and finally a need to stretch the movement. The final analytical phase is a movement based discussion with a dozen or so other NOII activists from across Canada, exploring what those movement shaping approaches mean in practice: this is a powerful surrendering of authorial voice.
The framing of border imperialism in colonial relations means that Walia then draws these analytical stands together to highlight what it means to decolonize. Her focus is on structural relations and she explores in particular both wider social relations and social movements. These are, necessarily, quite broad brush discussions in that they draw together the rest of the book, which in being bottom-up, specific movement-centric is packed full of cases and instances of action and activity, giving many instances where we can see the approach she advocates played out and discussed. Walia is open and up front about the tensions of this kind of movement work, the uncomfortable alliances that often develop, and in these cases in particular the need for a clear sense of strategy and tactics.
The book is woven through the voices of the migrant and colonised peoples – Walia herself as a migrant to Canada draws on her own experience and the insights gained, but the poems, short stories, reflections, and reportage that frame the opening chapters in particular given further life to the analysis and exploration of the approaches adopted in the NOII network.
All in all this builds up to be a powerful exploration of nations and borders, as well as a social movement struggling for migrant rights. As such it should resonate with many audiences, from the on-the-ground activist to the scholarly analysts. It is a rich and vital piece and despite being 10 years old at my time of reading it remains a vibrant interjection into and increasingly fraught area of social justice. Very highly recommended.
Her case is compelling, and grounded in struggles over refugee rights where she works from the well-established view that the mobility of capital is at odds with the immobility of labour – that is capital, including production and consumption, moves easily across borders, people do not, resulting in a myth of Western benevolence. The ‘border imperialism’ approach however undermines that myth through an approach that rests on four overlapping factors:
1) “the mass displacement of impoverished and colonized communities resulting from asymmetrical relations of global power, and the simultaneous securitization of the border against those migrants whom capitalism and empire have displaced;
2) “the criminalization of migration with severe punishment and discipline of those deemed ‘illegal’ or ‘alien’;
3) “the entrenchment of a racialized hierarchy of citizenship by arbitrating who legitimately constitutes the nation-state;
4) “the state-mediated exploitation of migrant labour, akin to conditions of slavery and servitude by capitalist interests.” (p5)
The effect of the focus on these factors then is less an emphasis on the border itself and more an exploration of the systems that determine who is ‘allowed in’, who becomes a member of the state. Walia is clear, that means that relations of colonialism are essential to understanding border imperialism, including settler colonialism, in that those systems determining nation membership are inseparable from those shaping the condition of Indigenous peoples.
Walia focuses on the coalition of groups across Canada that make up the ‘No One Is Illegal’ network, each with its own flavour, drawing on her engagements with two of the groups and calling on voices from across the network to craft a movement-based analysis and theory. She builds the case in four stages. The first is an exploration, drawing on scholarly and movement-based analyses, of what border imperialism means. She then moves on to look at the work and activities of NOII, groups and individuals they work with, and the strategic and tactical approaches is adopts. In the third section, she builds an outline of the movement theory that shapes NOII – clarity about strategy and tactics, making sure to maintain anti-oppression work, working with particular non-hierarchical and inclusive structures and forms of leadership, and finally a need to stretch the movement. The final analytical phase is a movement based discussion with a dozen or so other NOII activists from across Canada, exploring what those movement shaping approaches mean in practice: this is a powerful surrendering of authorial voice.
The framing of border imperialism in colonial relations means that Walia then draws these analytical stands together to highlight what it means to decolonize. Her focus is on structural relations and she explores in particular both wider social relations and social movements. These are, necessarily, quite broad brush discussions in that they draw together the rest of the book, which in being bottom-up, specific movement-centric is packed full of cases and instances of action and activity, giving many instances where we can see the approach she advocates played out and discussed. Walia is open and up front about the tensions of this kind of movement work, the uncomfortable alliances that often develop, and in these cases in particular the need for a clear sense of strategy and tactics.
The book is woven through the voices of the migrant and colonised peoples – Walia herself as a migrant to Canada draws on her own experience and the insights gained, but the poems, short stories, reflections, and reportage that frame the opening chapters in particular given further life to the analysis and exploration of the approaches adopted in the NOII network.
All in all this builds up to be a powerful exploration of nations and borders, as well as a social movement struggling for migrant rights. As such it should resonate with many audiences, from the on-the-ground activist to the scholarly analysts. It is a rich and vital piece and despite being 10 years old at my time of reading it remains a vibrant interjection into and increasingly fraught area of social justice. Very highly recommended.
July 24, 2018
"What will free us is the collective and public recognition of all bodies, all abilities, all genders, all experiences, and all expressions as inherently valuable, and by virtue of their very existence, as distinctly human. Since border imperialism and its constituent processes of capitalism and colonialism have psychologically dispossessed as well as structurally divided us, decolonization is an assertion of our intrinsic self-determining beauty and humanity" (265).
UNDOING BORDER IMPERIALISM is mind-blowingly good. I teared up, I gasped, I kept asking—urgently—how the fuck I will engage in decolonization in my own life, in my own work. This book is the ultimate work of praxis: Walia weaves together theory, personal narratives, on-the-ground movement stories, and the wisdom of a-zillion revolutionaries. As hard and complicated as all this makes genuine decolonization seem to be, I love that Syed Khalid Hussan ends the epilogue with these sentences: "We must act every day. We must act" (283). This is not a book to rot on a library shelf; this is a book to take to the streets.
UNDOING BORDER IMPERIALISM is mind-blowingly good. I teared up, I gasped, I kept asking—urgently—how the fuck I will engage in decolonization in my own life, in my own work. This book is the ultimate work of praxis: Walia weaves together theory, personal narratives, on-the-ground movement stories, and the wisdom of a-zillion revolutionaries. As hard and complicated as all this makes genuine decolonization seem to be, I love that Syed Khalid Hussan ends the epilogue with these sentences: "We must act every day. We must act" (283). This is not a book to rot on a library shelf; this is a book to take to the streets.
April 21, 2023
One of my most highlighted/underlined/exclamation pointed books of all time.
August 20, 2024
Although over a decade old at this point, Undoing Border Imperialism still feels relevant today in 2024—maybe even more urgent and important than it was when Harsha Walia first wrote and assembled it. Part how-to, part manifesto, part oral history, this compact volume works hard to syncretize different modes of resistance, from academic theory to grassroots activism. It is a volume I sorely needed to read as I navigate my own journey trying to figure out how to be a more effective, more participatory activist.
The core of this book looks at resistance against the Canadian state via NOII (No One Is Illegal), and specifically the NOII-Vancouver branch in which Walia has participated. Though focused therefore on migrant justice, fights against deportation, etc., Walia explicitly addresses the need for intersectionality, particularly with regards to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty, as well as anticapitalism. She discusses her own experience occasionally. However, she focuses mainly on what NOII has accomplished, how the NOII groups have functioned, and what advice she or other activists she has interviewed would give to people looking to be more involved in this advocacy. The result is impressively well-organized, incisive, and inspiring.
I appreciate how Walia makes space for different lenses of activism. The book starts grounded in theory before branching out into practice, and Walia notes the tension between these two worlds. As someone whose background is heavily academic, intellectual, rational, part of my work is unlearning some of these modes of thinking, expanding my perspective so I better understand what it is like to do work on the ground. At the same time, Walia cites a lot of theorists, scholars, and writers whose names I had never heard or whose work I haven’t read. There is so much more for me to learn!
Probably the most enlightening chapter for me personally was “Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory” (see what Walia did there, lol). Walia criticizes NGOs for being reliant on funding from governments or institutions that, in turn, might expect them to be less radical. She contrasts this with the model of NOII and other, more fluid groups. This analysis really helped me understand why I have felt disappointed in a local collective that I initially thought could be more radical than it turned out to be—they are organized as a nonprofit, with a board, etc. Walia sounds the alarm that the path towards respectability and campaigns for mainstream reform can be tempting but fraught with problems.
At the same time, Undoing Border Imperialism does not pretend that NOII or similar groups are utopian. Walia is honest about the challenges of operating such groups, the unspoken hierarchies that can emerge, and the need often to work alongside other groups who don’t always share your values. This latter point was interesting to me. We are so polarized, and the Left has a serious problem right now with purity culture and eating itself, especially on social media. Walia’s approach is practical, compassionate, but also grounded in an unflinching commitment to her group’s core principles. Her point is that you can align on strategy without expecting one hundred percent concordance on beliefs. However, she also stresses that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to working alongside diverse groups. It’s always going to be a conversation—and that is so important too.
I must admit I don’t know a ton about migrant justice issues in Canada. I learned some from reading Policing Black Lives , and I have been trying to follow the conversation around the temporary foreign worker program. Our society doesn’t seem like it is interested in having a serious discussion, however, about the racism and xenophobia within Canada; we are too interested in pretending we are so much more welcoming and inclusive than the United States. Walia and other activists whose voices are included in this book are very critical of Canada as a nation-state. As they should be. Undoing Border Imperialism might not radicalize you by itself, but it is a fantastic resource on your path to further radicalization.
Ultimately, this is a book that encourages action rather than armchairing. If you want to learn more about signing petitions and posting on social media, this book is not for you. I can’t claim I am going to immediately go out and start hanging out with my local activists and putting my body on the line in direct action—I’d love to say that, but it would be untrue. But this is a book that shows you how direct action works in concert, not in opposition, with other forms of resistance.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
The core of this book looks at resistance against the Canadian state via NOII (No One Is Illegal), and specifically the NOII-Vancouver branch in which Walia has participated. Though focused therefore on migrant justice, fights against deportation, etc., Walia explicitly addresses the need for intersectionality, particularly with regards to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty, as well as anticapitalism. She discusses her own experience occasionally. However, she focuses mainly on what NOII has accomplished, how the NOII groups have functioned, and what advice she or other activists she has interviewed would give to people looking to be more involved in this advocacy. The result is impressively well-organized, incisive, and inspiring.
I appreciate how Walia makes space for different lenses of activism. The book starts grounded in theory before branching out into practice, and Walia notes the tension between these two worlds. As someone whose background is heavily academic, intellectual, rational, part of my work is unlearning some of these modes of thinking, expanding my perspective so I better understand what it is like to do work on the ground. At the same time, Walia cites a lot of theorists, scholars, and writers whose names I had never heard or whose work I haven’t read. There is so much more for me to learn!
Probably the most enlightening chapter for me personally was “Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory” (see what Walia did there, lol). Walia criticizes NGOs for being reliant on funding from governments or institutions that, in turn, might expect them to be less radical. She contrasts this with the model of NOII and other, more fluid groups. This analysis really helped me understand why I have felt disappointed in a local collective that I initially thought could be more radical than it turned out to be—they are organized as a nonprofit, with a board, etc. Walia sounds the alarm that the path towards respectability and campaigns for mainstream reform can be tempting but fraught with problems.
At the same time, Undoing Border Imperialism does not pretend that NOII or similar groups are utopian. Walia is honest about the challenges of operating such groups, the unspoken hierarchies that can emerge, and the need often to work alongside other groups who don’t always share your values. This latter point was interesting to me. We are so polarized, and the Left has a serious problem right now with purity culture and eating itself, especially on social media. Walia’s approach is practical, compassionate, but also grounded in an unflinching commitment to her group’s core principles. Her point is that you can align on strategy without expecting one hundred percent concordance on beliefs. However, she also stresses that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to working alongside diverse groups. It’s always going to be a conversation—and that is so important too.
I must admit I don’t know a ton about migrant justice issues in Canada. I learned some from reading Policing Black Lives , and I have been trying to follow the conversation around the temporary foreign worker program. Our society doesn’t seem like it is interested in having a serious discussion, however, about the racism and xenophobia within Canada; we are too interested in pretending we are so much more welcoming and inclusive than the United States. Walia and other activists whose voices are included in this book are very critical of Canada as a nation-state. As they should be. Undoing Border Imperialism might not radicalize you by itself, but it is a fantastic resource on your path to further radicalization.
Ultimately, this is a book that encourages action rather than armchairing. If you want to learn more about signing petitions and posting on social media, this book is not for you. I can’t claim I am going to immediately go out and start hanging out with my local activists and putting my body on the line in direct action—I’d love to say that, but it would be untrue. But this is a book that shows you how direct action works in concert, not in opposition, with other forms of resistance.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.
March 17, 2014
One December day in 2007, two thousand people showed up at Vancouver’s International Airport. Unlike other days, these particular people had not come to catch a flight; they were there to stop a person from boarding one. Laibar Singh, a paralyzed refugee from India, was facing deportation. On the day he was to leave, those two thousand people, mostly Punjabi elders and aunties, shut down the international terminal, causing the cancellation of dozens of flights. They formed a protective circle around Singh for hours, finally forcing immigration enforcement to back down.
“This historic blockade in December 2007 is the only documented time in recent North American history that the violence of deportation has been prevented through the power of a mass mobilization and direct action,” wrote Harsha Walia, one of the organizers responsible for this mass mobilization and the author and editor of Undoing Border Imperialism. Walia is a longtime organizer with No One Is Illegal (NOII), a decentralized network of groups across Canada that works with refugees, undocumented migrants, and migrant workers. At the same time, NOII also offers a systemic critique of border imperialism. This combination “stands in contrast to more mainstream immigrant rights movements that ignore the centrality of empire and capitalism to the violence of displacement, migration and border controls” (110). Walia combines her own analyses, experiences, and writings with poems and short essays by other migrant justice organizers as well as a roundtable discussion with various organizers with NOII.
The stopping of Singh’s deportation is just one example of migrant rights organizing documented in Undoing Border Imperialism, the latest in the Anarchist Intervention series, a collaboration between AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies. But beyond being a list of visible victories, the book also examines the behind-the-scenes organizing that enabled this and other successes while placing immigration and deportation in a broader political context. Moving away from the popular rhetoric that blames and punishes migrants or forces them to assimilate, the concept of “border imperialism” examines and analyzes the processes of displacement and migration.
My entire review can be read at http://monthlyreview.org/2014/03/01/c......
“This historic blockade in December 2007 is the only documented time in recent North American history that the violence of deportation has been prevented through the power of a mass mobilization and direct action,” wrote Harsha Walia, one of the organizers responsible for this mass mobilization and the author and editor of Undoing Border Imperialism. Walia is a longtime organizer with No One Is Illegal (NOII), a decentralized network of groups across Canada that works with refugees, undocumented migrants, and migrant workers. At the same time, NOII also offers a systemic critique of border imperialism. This combination “stands in contrast to more mainstream immigrant rights movements that ignore the centrality of empire and capitalism to the violence of displacement, migration and border controls” (110). Walia combines her own analyses, experiences, and writings with poems and short essays by other migrant justice organizers as well as a roundtable discussion with various organizers with NOII.
The stopping of Singh’s deportation is just one example of migrant rights organizing documented in Undoing Border Imperialism, the latest in the Anarchist Intervention series, a collaboration between AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies. But beyond being a list of visible victories, the book also examines the behind-the-scenes organizing that enabled this and other successes while placing immigration and deportation in a broader political context. Moving away from the popular rhetoric that blames and punishes migrants or forces them to assimilate, the concept of “border imperialism” examines and analyzes the processes of displacement and migration.
My entire review can be read at http://monthlyreview.org/2014/03/01/c......
December 31, 2013
Lots of words. This is one of those works full of lefty rhetoric that permit the reader to read page after page while conveying virtually no actual information. Buzzwords and trendy academics populate the text fleshing out ideas that are already intimately familiar to those acquainted with the left.
Nonetheless, the general politics and activism of the contributors to this book are praiseworthy. No doubt many will get more out of it than I did, as is perhaps evidenced by the many luminaries providing blurbs for the book.
Chapter three, "Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory," is the best piece in the book, as it focuses on the concrete needs of organizing effectively. It critiques the "insular networks" of the left, which seems a bit ironic given that it is hard to imagine anyone but left-inclined graduate students reading this book.
Walia was already familiar to me, principally for being on the wrong end of a 2010 debate on the black-bloc tactic: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2916.
Happily, the book did introduce me to a useful quote I quite like:
“Democracy is not, to begin with, a form of State. It is, in the first place, the reality of the power of the people that can never coincide with the form of a State. There will always be tension between democracy as the exercise of a shared power of thinking and acting, and the State, whose very principle is to appropriate this power.” —Jacques Rancière, “Democracy Is Not, to Begin with, a Form of State”
Nonetheless, the general politics and activism of the contributors to this book are praiseworthy. No doubt many will get more out of it than I did, as is perhaps evidenced by the many luminaries providing blurbs for the book.
Chapter three, "Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory," is the best piece in the book, as it focuses on the concrete needs of organizing effectively. It critiques the "insular networks" of the left, which seems a bit ironic given that it is hard to imagine anyone but left-inclined graduate students reading this book.
Walia was already familiar to me, principally for being on the wrong end of a 2010 debate on the black-bloc tactic: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/2916.
Happily, the book did introduce me to a useful quote I quite like:
“Democracy is not, to begin with, a form of State. It is, in the first place, the reality of the power of the people that can never coincide with the form of a State. There will always be tension between democracy as the exercise of a shared power of thinking and acting, and the State, whose very principle is to appropriate this power.” —Jacques Rancière, “Democracy Is Not, to Begin with, a Form of State”
March 17, 2014
A cogent, readable articulation of an pro-migrant politics that engages with race, gender, colonialism, queerness, etc. the first chapter, "what is border imperialism?" was particularly great and I'd recommend it to anyone.
Later chapters were sometimes a bit too vague and celebratory, a list of values really. I, too, want an anti-authoritarian movement that also develops the leadership of the most oppressed, that is attentive to gender justice and violence against women without being essentialist or demanding impossible purity, that has a holistic analysis of imperialism as something that affects both migrants and indigenous people but in different ways, that affirms indigenous sovereignty - but what would that actually look like? And what are some of the barriers to its success, what are its failures? There's always something and it's usually pretty illuminating! Ultimately this is kind of a manifesto, but I wanted a history, a guide, something more concrete and critical. It's not necessarily a fault of the book that it's something a bit different.
Later chapters were sometimes a bit too vague and celebratory, a list of values really. I, too, want an anti-authoritarian movement that also develops the leadership of the most oppressed, that is attentive to gender justice and violence against women without being essentialist or demanding impossible purity, that has a holistic analysis of imperialism as something that affects both migrants and indigenous people but in different ways, that affirms indigenous sovereignty - but what would that actually look like? And what are some of the barriers to its success, what are its failures? There's always something and it's usually pretty illuminating! Ultimately this is kind of a manifesto, but I wanted a history, a guide, something more concrete and critical. It's not necessarily a fault of the book that it's something a bit different.
November 21, 2022
Analyzing colonialism and capitalism’s aspirations and how they intersect is key to deepening our understanding of international migration because we would find that the methods and culminations of these powerful frames of the world often overlap, making diaspora and human struggle within migrant movements between point A and point B, and their existence in the world residing in either point A or point B, a prearranged system of domination, control, and exploitation. In such little ink, Walia is able to convey at an introductory level that neoliberal and neoclassical theories of migration are reductive as it conveniently ignores more obvious factors -- Migration is a much bigger, more complicated, and more violent cycle of western empire as opposed to individual or random cases of movement.
February 19, 2020
Changed my life. Although two dimensional in its words the messages are alive and well in Walia's delivery. Might be intimidating at first but honestly necessary to engage with!!!
May 18, 2014
Anyone who has been involved in activism in any of Canada’s largest cities has probably worked with Harsha Walia at some point along the way. An organizing powerhouse who is active across issues and with a lengthy list of groups, Walia is also a writer and regular public speaker. Somehow, amidst a flurry of events and other work, she found the time to grace us with her first book, Undoing Border Imperialism, which came out with Oakland’s AK Press in the fall. In more ways than one, the book is a true manifestation of theory meeting practice, taking strength from Walia’s varied and extensive readings, from her personal life experiences, and from over a decade of movement organizing in Canada.
“Undoing border imperialism would mean a freer society for everyone since borders are the nexus of most systems of oppression,” writes Walia. “Rather than conceiving of immigration as a domestic policy issue to be managed by the state, the lens of border imperialism focuses the conversation on the systemic structuring of global displacement and migration through and in collusion with capitalism, colonial empire, state building, and hierarchies of oppression.”
Walia carefully outlines her theory of border imperialism, but she doesn’t stop there the way an academic or journalist might. Instead, she dedicates the bulk of the text to reflection and to proposals around what makes for meaningful activism in this context. Undoing Border Imperialism lays out a compelling definition of the concept of border imperialism, and then takes readers through concrete experiences of how it can be challenged and dismantled.
“Border imperialism is a useful analytic framework for organizing migrant justice movements in North America. It takes us away from an analysis that blames and punishes migrants, or one that forces migrants to assimilate and establish their individual worth,” she writes. Vancouver-based Walia plays an ambitious role as both author and curator of Undoing Border Imperialism. She contributes the tight and sometimes dense analysis that builds the concept of border imperialism and grassroots organizing theory. These sections are interspersed by poetry and short stories from primarily women of color writers and activists based in Canada and the United States. Undoing Border Imperialism concludes with a written round table discussion that Walia calls the heart of the book.
Walia describes border imperialism as emerging from a confluence of four central practices spearheaded by nation states and accompanied by ongoing processes of capitalist accumulation. The first is capitalism and empire, which underpin the entire system, followed by the criminalization of migrants, the production of racialized, sexist and imperialist national identities, and the denial of legal permanent residency and citizenship to migrants.
Undoing Border Imperialism is focused on the experiences of those who are displaced because they are impoverished by the expansion of neoliberal capitalism, by wars and invasions, and because of the climate crisis. This displacement can result in people and groups crossing state borders, but it does not need to in order for it to fit within the category of border imperialism. “The world over, Indigenous communities are at the forefront of resisting dispossession while facing the brunt of displacement, particularly from rural areas into urban centers,” writes Walia.
She points out that the conditions that lead to the displacement of Indigenous peoples from their traditional lands to the city are essentially the same conditions that push people (who are also sometimes Indigenous) to migrate across state borders.
One of the strengths of Walia’s analysis is the way that she steps back and captures the big picture, providing readers with an accessible systemic analysis. “Border controls are used to deter those for who migration is the only option to the plundering of their communities and economies due to the free license granted to capital and militaries,” she writes. She makes it clear that the same states that control and criminalize migration are in part responsible for the movement of millions of people who migrate for security or economic reasons.
Undoing Border Imperialism effectively challenges conventional wisdom and clichés, like the idea that the state is shrinking under neoliberal capitalism. “Contrary to the suggestion by some analysts that the Western state’s jurisdiction is withering under the power of multinational corporations, I would contend that the state is not eroding under transnational capitalist globalization. The state, along with its forms of governance including through border imperialism, is evolving to continue to meet the needs of capitalist expansion through more flexible means of governance and accumulation,” writes Walia. Though in some areas like the provision of social services there is little doubt that the role of states has generally receded, borders embody current sites for the expansion of state power, with thousands of kilometers of walls, growing armies of border police, and an increasingly intrusive surveillance apparatus.
Part of the control of migration documented in the book is a growing prison-industrial complex where migrants are detained. According to Walia, these detentions serve to reinforce white supremacy and the dominant order as well as generate revenues for private prison owners and contractors. “Within mainstream narratives, criminals are never imagined as politicians, bankers, corporate criminals or war criminals, but as a racialized class of people living in poverty,” she writes.
The prison system is but one form of state violence against racialized migrants and Indigenous people. “The material structures of the Western state have killed, tortured, occupied, raped, incarcerated, sterilized, interned, occupied, raped, incarcerated, robbed land from, pillaged, introduced drugs and alcohol into, stolen children from, sanctioned vigilante violence on, denied public services to, and facilitated capital’s hyper-expolitation of racialized communities,” writes Walia.
Ongoing attacks by nation-states on these communities take place domestically throughout much of the world, as well as internationally by nation states who are able to project their power outwards. “These lived experiences of otherness are shaped by imaginings about who is entitled to protection from the nation-state because they represent the national identity, and who faces violence by the nation-state because their bodies are deemed not to belong.” These same logics, Walia argues, are projected outwards by imperialist nations. “The logic of racism and inferiority that drives Western imperial wars is inextricably connected to the logic of racism and exclusion within the West.”
“Within border imperialism, the state-capital nexus relies on the apartheid nature of citizenship status to expand a pool of disposable migrant and undocumented labor that lowers the wage floor for capitalist interests without disturbing the normative whiteness of the nation-state.” Walia notes that the migrant laborer population of Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirate) hovers around 40 per cent, these workers are rarely granted citizenship.
“An analysis of border imperialism encapsulates a dual critique of Western state building within global empire: the role of Western imperialism in dispossessing communities in order to secure land and resources for state and capitalist interests, as well as the deliberately limited inclusion of migrant bodies into Western states through processes of criminalization and racialization that justify the commodification of their labor,” writes Walia.
She refers to the West throughout the book “not only to denote the geographic site of the global North (that is, Europe, Australia and North America) but also to reference the dominance of Western political, economic and social formations and ideologies that have led to the foundation of other settler-colonial states such as Israel, and that are increasingly adopted by neoliberal states in Latin America, Africa and Asia.”
Delineating between the so-called West and the rest of the world is no small task, and the emphasis on the culpability of Western states may absolve some responsibility for displacement of Indigenous peoples, peasants and the urban poor from local (non-Western) governments. There are few (if any) nation-states in the world that do not, in some way, repress or limit the movements of migrants or facilitate displacement to clear the way for industrial or energy projects. Nor are Western states the only ones guilty of limiting inclusion based on race and/or citizenship. Rather, these elements are embedded within state-building worldwide.
Following her analysis of border imperialism, Walia walks readers through the creation and organization of No One is Illegal groups in Canada over the past 12 years, highlighting successes in preventing deportations and in carrying out support work with migrants, Indigenous land defenders, and other directly impacted communities. In linking anti-colonial struggles to migrant justice organizing, Walia suggests that decolonization is a key process in collectively undoing the damage done by border imperialism. “Since border imperialism and its constituent processes of capitalism and colonialism have psychologically dispossessed as well as structurally divided us, decolonization is an assertion of our intrinsic self-determining beauty and humanity,” she writes.
Perhaps the book’s most important contribution is one that is identified by longtime activist and writer Andrea Smith in the introduction. “…Harsha asks us to look at how anti-immigrant xenophobia, white supremacy, and settler colonialism are mutually reinforcing in ways that actually prevent us from seeing how these logics are fully connected,” writes Smith.
Undoing Border Imperialism is an important title that deserves to be on everyone's reading list, filled as it is with compact and readable theory and movement organizing gems from the front lines of migrant justice and Indigenous solidarity organizing in Canada.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/inter...
“Undoing border imperialism would mean a freer society for everyone since borders are the nexus of most systems of oppression,” writes Walia. “Rather than conceiving of immigration as a domestic policy issue to be managed by the state, the lens of border imperialism focuses the conversation on the systemic structuring of global displacement and migration through and in collusion with capitalism, colonial empire, state building, and hierarchies of oppression.”
Walia carefully outlines her theory of border imperialism, but she doesn’t stop there the way an academic or journalist might. Instead, she dedicates the bulk of the text to reflection and to proposals around what makes for meaningful activism in this context. Undoing Border Imperialism lays out a compelling definition of the concept of border imperialism, and then takes readers through concrete experiences of how it can be challenged and dismantled.
“Border imperialism is a useful analytic framework for organizing migrant justice movements in North America. It takes us away from an analysis that blames and punishes migrants, or one that forces migrants to assimilate and establish their individual worth,” she writes. Vancouver-based Walia plays an ambitious role as both author and curator of Undoing Border Imperialism. She contributes the tight and sometimes dense analysis that builds the concept of border imperialism and grassroots organizing theory. These sections are interspersed by poetry and short stories from primarily women of color writers and activists based in Canada and the United States. Undoing Border Imperialism concludes with a written round table discussion that Walia calls the heart of the book.
Walia describes border imperialism as emerging from a confluence of four central practices spearheaded by nation states and accompanied by ongoing processes of capitalist accumulation. The first is capitalism and empire, which underpin the entire system, followed by the criminalization of migrants, the production of racialized, sexist and imperialist national identities, and the denial of legal permanent residency and citizenship to migrants.
Undoing Border Imperialism is focused on the experiences of those who are displaced because they are impoverished by the expansion of neoliberal capitalism, by wars and invasions, and because of the climate crisis. This displacement can result in people and groups crossing state borders, but it does not need to in order for it to fit within the category of border imperialism. “The world over, Indigenous communities are at the forefront of resisting dispossession while facing the brunt of displacement, particularly from rural areas into urban centers,” writes Walia.
She points out that the conditions that lead to the displacement of Indigenous peoples from their traditional lands to the city are essentially the same conditions that push people (who are also sometimes Indigenous) to migrate across state borders.
One of the strengths of Walia’s analysis is the way that she steps back and captures the big picture, providing readers with an accessible systemic analysis. “Border controls are used to deter those for who migration is the only option to the plundering of their communities and economies due to the free license granted to capital and militaries,” she writes. She makes it clear that the same states that control and criminalize migration are in part responsible for the movement of millions of people who migrate for security or economic reasons.
Undoing Border Imperialism effectively challenges conventional wisdom and clichés, like the idea that the state is shrinking under neoliberal capitalism. “Contrary to the suggestion by some analysts that the Western state’s jurisdiction is withering under the power of multinational corporations, I would contend that the state is not eroding under transnational capitalist globalization. The state, along with its forms of governance including through border imperialism, is evolving to continue to meet the needs of capitalist expansion through more flexible means of governance and accumulation,” writes Walia. Though in some areas like the provision of social services there is little doubt that the role of states has generally receded, borders embody current sites for the expansion of state power, with thousands of kilometers of walls, growing armies of border police, and an increasingly intrusive surveillance apparatus.
Part of the control of migration documented in the book is a growing prison-industrial complex where migrants are detained. According to Walia, these detentions serve to reinforce white supremacy and the dominant order as well as generate revenues for private prison owners and contractors. “Within mainstream narratives, criminals are never imagined as politicians, bankers, corporate criminals or war criminals, but as a racialized class of people living in poverty,” she writes.
The prison system is but one form of state violence against racialized migrants and Indigenous people. “The material structures of the Western state have killed, tortured, occupied, raped, incarcerated, sterilized, interned, occupied, raped, incarcerated, robbed land from, pillaged, introduced drugs and alcohol into, stolen children from, sanctioned vigilante violence on, denied public services to, and facilitated capital’s hyper-expolitation of racialized communities,” writes Walia.
Ongoing attacks by nation-states on these communities take place domestically throughout much of the world, as well as internationally by nation states who are able to project their power outwards. “These lived experiences of otherness are shaped by imaginings about who is entitled to protection from the nation-state because they represent the national identity, and who faces violence by the nation-state because their bodies are deemed not to belong.” These same logics, Walia argues, are projected outwards by imperialist nations. “The logic of racism and inferiority that drives Western imperial wars is inextricably connected to the logic of racism and exclusion within the West.”
“Within border imperialism, the state-capital nexus relies on the apartheid nature of citizenship status to expand a pool of disposable migrant and undocumented labor that lowers the wage floor for capitalist interests without disturbing the normative whiteness of the nation-state.” Walia notes that the migrant laborer population of Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirate) hovers around 40 per cent, these workers are rarely granted citizenship.
“An analysis of border imperialism encapsulates a dual critique of Western state building within global empire: the role of Western imperialism in dispossessing communities in order to secure land and resources for state and capitalist interests, as well as the deliberately limited inclusion of migrant bodies into Western states through processes of criminalization and racialization that justify the commodification of their labor,” writes Walia.
She refers to the West throughout the book “not only to denote the geographic site of the global North (that is, Europe, Australia and North America) but also to reference the dominance of Western political, economic and social formations and ideologies that have led to the foundation of other settler-colonial states such as Israel, and that are increasingly adopted by neoliberal states in Latin America, Africa and Asia.”
Delineating between the so-called West and the rest of the world is no small task, and the emphasis on the culpability of Western states may absolve some responsibility for displacement of Indigenous peoples, peasants and the urban poor from local (non-Western) governments. There are few (if any) nation-states in the world that do not, in some way, repress or limit the movements of migrants or facilitate displacement to clear the way for industrial or energy projects. Nor are Western states the only ones guilty of limiting inclusion based on race and/or citizenship. Rather, these elements are embedded within state-building worldwide.
Following her analysis of border imperialism, Walia walks readers through the creation and organization of No One is Illegal groups in Canada over the past 12 years, highlighting successes in preventing deportations and in carrying out support work with migrants, Indigenous land defenders, and other directly impacted communities. In linking anti-colonial struggles to migrant justice organizing, Walia suggests that decolonization is a key process in collectively undoing the damage done by border imperialism. “Since border imperialism and its constituent processes of capitalism and colonialism have psychologically dispossessed as well as structurally divided us, decolonization is an assertion of our intrinsic self-determining beauty and humanity,” she writes.
Perhaps the book’s most important contribution is one that is identified by longtime activist and writer Andrea Smith in the introduction. “…Harsha asks us to look at how anti-immigrant xenophobia, white supremacy, and settler colonialism are mutually reinforcing in ways that actually prevent us from seeing how these logics are fully connected,” writes Smith.
Undoing Border Imperialism is an important title that deserves to be on everyone's reading list, filled as it is with compact and readable theory and movement organizing gems from the front lines of migrant justice and Indigenous solidarity organizing in Canada.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/inter...
June 2, 2024
This is more of a collection of different things than I was expecting. This is the second of three anarchist books I picked up from a book sale I quite randomly went to recently. No idea why I'm currently on an anarchist lit binge at the moment, but oh well!
I actually like a lot of what is said here but I would have appreciated more development on certain points, personally. This was also very focused on No One Is Illegal, a group based in Canada. Interesting by itself.
A borderless world is a noble goal, one I do actually hope happens one day. Maybe that day will never be seen, but I do understand its appeal. As such this is a book I'd recommend checking out if you want a perspective on that.
I actually like a lot of what is said here but I would have appreciated more development on certain points, personally. This was also very focused on No One Is Illegal, a group based in Canada. Interesting by itself.
A borderless world is a noble goal, one I do actually hope happens one day. Maybe that day will never be seen, but I do understand its appeal. As such this is a book I'd recommend checking out if you want a perspective on that.
October 20, 2020
Lots of Academic Jargon and Anger.
I didn't see the term Anarchist Interventions when I borrowed this from the library. I agree with many of the ideas in loosening borders. I don't believe that there can't he borders. There hasn't really been times when there hasn't been borders of some kind. This book uses a lot of jargon geared towards mostly academic audiences and like minded readers. It expresses a lot of terrible and horrible abuses that need to end but it doesn't seem to have any idea to run a government or society and its claims see to invite more cruel in place of others. Sounds a lot like communism and not a pleasant version. The jargon! The jargon!
I didn't see the term Anarchist Interventions when I borrowed this from the library. I agree with many of the ideas in loosening borders. I don't believe that there can't he borders. There hasn't really been times when there hasn't been borders of some kind. This book uses a lot of jargon geared towards mostly academic audiences and like minded readers. It expresses a lot of terrible and horrible abuses that need to end but it doesn't seem to have any idea to run a government or society and its claims see to invite more cruel in place of others. Sounds a lot like communism and not a pleasant version. The jargon! The jargon!
January 18, 2023
must read for everyone who dreams of creating utopia!! tears in my eyes, fire in my soul & immense love and gratitude in my heart. so many thank yous to harsha & all the contributors. this work is soul-nourishing, gut wrenching & hope-filled.
January 21, 2021
As an emotional and physical runner, I have more than the outmost respect for Mlle. Harsha Walia & what she did HERE putting together amazing analysis from many comrades across Turtle Island!
May they continue to stay safe & vigilant. These lives, stories & tribunals are a must read!
May they continue to stay safe & vigilant. These lives, stories & tribunals are a must read!
February 8, 2021
I just re-read this book and was really happy I did. I first picked this book up in 2014 when I had just moved Tucson, AZ and immersing myself for the first time in antiborder work, but never finished it. Re-reading it this time, I was struck by how much of this theory and analysis is imbued in the work that I have been doing along the US Mexico border. It felt both refreshing and comforting to read Harsha Walia's book. I recognized the dynamics and conundrums of the organizing work that I do, for example how to be doing direct support work while also engaging in larger movement-based abolition strategy, echoed in the accounts of organizers with NOII in Canada. This book has aged well, and still feels like a really apt read for anyone curious about learning lessons from those on the ground or for those who have learned this theory thru praxis.
April 26, 2021
In this important and highly pertinent book, the author introduces the concept of border imperialism and situates it within the interlocking and interconnected systems of oppressions - imperialism, colonialism, racism, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, etc.
Primarily through her work with the decentralized chapters of the No One is Illegal (NOII) Canada, the author also highlights the various events and activities that she and her organization have been involved in to fight against deportations and work towards overarching strategic goals such as the eventual abolition of borders, prisons, dismantling of capitalism, and end to the nefarious and continuous incursions on the Indigenous lands and communities in Canada. The other half of the book delves into more specifics about what it means to organize, how organizations should be or could be structured to build movements, forge alliances, and chart our path to our collective liberation. It is this part that resonated with me deeply on a personal level.
I have to admit that organizations, associations, and groups have never really appealed to me, in fact, I have actively avoided them and shunned them. And I'm all the poorer for it, mentally, emotionally, intellectually and so on. The way my life shaped up along with all my inadequacies and limitations just instilled in me a deep cynicism regarding others, almost a misanthropy. It is something that I'm actively trying to ameliorate so that I can give more meaning to my life and have something more to offer.
I know I am not alone in feeling this level of alienation with this level of intensity. We live in a terribly alienating and atomized world. This is why this book resonated so deeply with me. Because the work of the author and her peers through their organizations imagine and actively work towards creating a world that is radical, transformative, and better, and where we care for one another and are taken care of to heal and work towards our collective liberation. The framework that the author proposes and practices is that of decolonization. In her words:
The first defining process within border imperialism is displacements as a result of the coercive extractions of capitalism and colonialism, and the simultaneous fortification of the border—often by those very same Western powers that are complicit in these displacements—which renders the migration of displaced people as perilous.
Border controls are used to deter those for who migration is the only option to the plundering of their communities and economies due to the free license granted to capital and militaries. Capitalism destroys land-based subsistence cultures and concentrates wealth and property into the hands of a select few. Production within capitalism is disconnected from human need, collective creativity, and the natural world—all of which become commodities to be bought and sold on the market.
a fundamental feature of border imperialism within neoliberalism is to facilitate capital flows across borders while also ensuring labor flexibility by legalizing an exploitable migrant labor workforce.
Primarily through her work with the decentralized chapters of the No One is Illegal (NOII) Canada, the author also highlights the various events and activities that she and her organization have been involved in to fight against deportations and work towards overarching strategic goals such as the eventual abolition of borders, prisons, dismantling of capitalism, and end to the nefarious and continuous incursions on the Indigenous lands and communities in Canada. The other half of the book delves into more specifics about what it means to organize, how organizations should be or could be structured to build movements, forge alliances, and chart our path to our collective liberation. It is this part that resonated with me deeply on a personal level.
I have to admit that organizations, associations, and groups have never really appealed to me, in fact, I have actively avoided them and shunned them. And I'm all the poorer for it, mentally, emotionally, intellectually and so on. The way my life shaped up along with all my inadequacies and limitations just instilled in me a deep cynicism regarding others, almost a misanthropy. It is something that I'm actively trying to ameliorate so that I can give more meaning to my life and have something more to offer.
One of the contradictions of border imperialism and capitalism is that while we are increasingly dependent on intricate production processes for our basic clothing and food, we are increasingly isolated from one another. Each of us plays such an atomized role in the global economy—like cogs in a wheel—that our social relations come to mimic that atomization. This psychological and social isolation, first, encourages our addiction to consumer culture, which in turn feeds endless capitalist production, and second, perpetuates our fears of one another, which justifies ever-expanding state surveillance and criminalization within border imperialism.
I know I am not alone in feeling this level of alienation with this level of intensity. We live in a terribly alienating and atomized world. This is why this book resonated so deeply with me. Because the work of the author and her peers through their organizations imagine and actively work towards creating a world that is radical, transformative, and better, and where we care for one another and are taken care of to heal and work towards our collective liberation. The framework that the author proposes and practices is that of decolonization. In her words:
Decolonization is more than a struggle against power and control; it is also the imagining and generating of alternative institutions and relations. Decolonization is a dual form of resistance that is responsive to dismantling current systems of colonial empire and systemic hierarchies, while also prefiguring societies based on equity, mutual aid, and self-determination.
By challenging the dehumanization intrinsic to the dominating and coercive systems of border imperialism, decolonization affirms the sacredness of all life and restores our relationship to the Earth.
Since border imperialism and its constituent processes of capitalism and colonialism have psychologically dispossessed as well as structurally divided us, decolonization is an assertion of our intrinsic self-beauty and humanity
Striving toward decolonization requires us to challenge a dehumanizing social organization that robs us from one another and normalizes a lack of responsibility and care for one another and the Earth. This does not suggest a simple call for unity across our differences—particularly those rooted in systemic colonial privilege—but rather evokes a necessary struggle from our specific histories and locations, while refounding alliance, community, and kinship with one other. Decolonization calls on us to learn about and challenge each other in our complicities and contradictions within asymmetric relations of power and oppression, as we unlearn colonial strategies that foster competition and division among each other. Perhaps more than anything else, decolonization invites us to actively become good ancestors to future generations.
May 5, 2021
Wrote an article inspired this book: https://wagingnonviolence.org/wr/2021...
Really great, loves how she weaves together political analysis and stories and lessons from grassroots organizers!
Really great, loves how she weaves together political analysis and stories and lessons from grassroots organizers!
February 10, 2013
can't wait!
September 5, 2019
Needed to read each chapter twice to fully digest it, this book is full of rich and incisive ideas. Highly recommended!
February 3, 2024
Harsha Walia and the many voices represented in this book offer an incredibly reinvigorating vision of revolutionary politics. Both in analytic terms (the first chapter, which forms the early basis for the more fleshed out book Border & Rule), and in the practical lessons and movement strategy discussions, this book was more than a decade ahead of its time. It seems like only now are significant sections of the movement in the US catching up to this kind of analysis.
Very grateful for the opportunity to learn from this book and the people and experiences given powerful voice within it. It’s a good companion to Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes (and for which Harsha wrote the afterword.
Very grateful for the opportunity to learn from this book and the people and experiences given powerful voice within it. It’s a good companion to Let This Radicalize You by Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes (and for which Harsha wrote the afterword.
Decolonization is more than a struggle against power and control; it is also the imagining and generating of alternative institutions and relations. Decolonization is a dual form of resistance that is responsive to dismantling current systems of colonial empire and systemic hierarchies, while also prefiguring societies based on equity, mutual aid, and self-determination. Undoing the physical and conceptual orderings of border imperialism requires a fundamental reorientation of ourselves, our movements, and our communities to think and act with intentionality, creativity, militancy, humility, and above all, a deep sense of responsibility and reciprocity. This paradigm shift is what I would call decolonization, and I believe that creating decolonizing conditions toward revolution, liberation, and trans- formation must become our collective priority.
Decolonization is as much a process as a goal; the journey of how we get there, together, is as critical as the destination we reach. In a world where capitalism and colonialism flourish due, at least in part, to the false sense of their inevitability, de- colonization is an evocation to not only dream but also to recover and carry ourselves out of erasure and victimhood. Based on my reflections and lessons from organizing over the past decade, this final chapter provides some signposts on the path to decolonizing structural colonialism, social justice movements, and social relations.
May 7, 2021
Harsha Walia, a South Asian activist based in Canada, uses the framework of border imperialism to understand (1) how Western states criminalize and exploit migrants and (2) how systems of imperialism, colonization, and capitalism displace and dispossess communities all across the globe. She challenges the myth of Western benevolence in migrant issues, as well as state-sponsored rhetoric of "border protection" and "national security." Rooted in the basis of decolonization and Indigenous sovereignty, this concept of "undoing borders" helps us connect the migrant justice movement with other social justice issues, such as dismantling the prison and military industrial complex, climate justice, Palestinian sovereignty, and police abolition. From war refugees from Vietnam and Laos, to the islanders of the Pacific Island nation Tuvalu that have been displaced by climate change, to Filipinx migrants recruited to precarious and low-wage jobs, migrant justice should be an important part of our conversations during API Heritage Month.
This book is a mix of academic, movement, and experiential theories, largely based in lived experiences of organizers and migrants. Works from other contributors are included, like Lily Yuriko Shinde's excerpt on how her parents were interned in British Columbia with other Japanese Canadians. Additionally, Walia draws from her own work in No One Is Illegal (NOII) and includes some fantastic organizing history on Canadian activism. I also appreciated the chapter, based in roundtable format, where other NOII activists answer questions on sustainable grassroots organizing, reform vs. revolution, and the radical nature of decolonized dreaming.
Full review here: https://www.instagram.com/p/COiHTVPL6Ve/
This book is a mix of academic, movement, and experiential theories, largely based in lived experiences of organizers and migrants. Works from other contributors are included, like Lily Yuriko Shinde's excerpt on how her parents were interned in British Columbia with other Japanese Canadians. Additionally, Walia draws from her own work in No One Is Illegal (NOII) and includes some fantastic organizing history on Canadian activism. I also appreciated the chapter, based in roundtable format, where other NOII activists answer questions on sustainable grassroots organizing, reform vs. revolution, and the radical nature of decolonized dreaming.
Full review here: https://www.instagram.com/p/COiHTVPL6Ve/
August 18, 2020
This is a book that is on the line between theory and practice, and as such, it's in a mode I think of as professional activism, with plenty of talk about praxis and hegemony. Kind of an AK Press house style. Not a bad thing, but I know there are people who are put off by that, especially when they're not used to it. But Walia makes this tendency fairly accessible; more than some do! The work in question is based in Canada, focusing on immigration issues, in conjunction with Indigenous sovereignty issues, but the ideas about border imperialism transfer to all the North American borders. The book includes perspectives from multiple people involved in the group No One is Illegal. It deals with the complications of building alliances with organizations whose politics don't completely align, and other more practical problems of coalition and activism, which was kind of what I was looking for. I'm still looking for material on what to do when you don't have a strong, healthy local group to work with, or the organizing background to start one, but I guess there's no magic wand for that. This did give me some stuff to think about, and I underlined a lot!
May 5, 2021
Walia shares her experience organizing with the No One is Illegal (NOII) network struggling alongside non-resident immigrants who are at risk of deportation. She describes detailed encounters of their work, outlining how NOII strives to provide open space for debate and accountable alliances while maintaining collective values and principles. This book provides approachable guidelines, overviews, and lessons that stuck with me. Particularly poignant sections were her discussions of settler privilege, solidarity versus support through the lens of feminist writer bell hooks, and the importance of decolonizing social relations.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews