The Field Researcher's Handbook by David J. Danelo

This will almost certainly happen during the Brexit negotiations, as the Ireland-United Kingdom land border becomes a flashpoint, potentially leading to renewed conflict or even open war between the regions. Hardening any international border invariably generates consequences that extend beyond the two countries establishing checkpoints or building walls. As has happened previously in European history, these new borderlands have once again become places of cultural duality: regions of linguistic, ethnic, and religious fusion marked by fences, barbed wire, and signs warning the wrong people to keep out. Are border fortifications/restrictions a useful or counterproductive response to mass movements of people?Īs Europe’s border controls have tightened, and with little hope for peace in Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan, migration into Europe from Africa and the Middle East has decreased but still continues. Combined, this venomous approach, typified by ‘First Daughter’ Ivanka Trump’s conflation of smuggling with trafficking, will have a deep and enduring impact in the western hemisphere that will, tragically, reverberate throughout the Global South.

Yet, Europe’s emerging security regime – symbolised by Brexit – preceded and presaged the horrific deportation policies of the Trump sdministration, which combine relentless surveillance with nationalist xenophobia.

Ten years ago, Europeans scoffed at American border controls, mocking the Department of Homeland Security as ineffective at best and draconian at worst. As the Schengen Area has shaken, a cascading series of political, economic, and cultural impacts have been felt throughout the region and the world. Like toppling dominoes one after another, European nations – most profoundly, the (not so) United Kingdom – have reasserted their sovereignty, declaring a loss of confidence in the European Union’s political integrity. By year’s end, terrorist attacks and asylum seekers had fractured the borderless treaty into chaos. At the beginning of 2015, Europe prided itself on the freedom of movement that citizens of the Schengen Area enjoyed. What are the intended/unintended consequences of anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking policies?

The Field Researcher's Handbook by David J. Danelo