Undoing Border Imperialism Summary

Undoing Border Imperialism by Harsha Walia provides a wide overview of the consequences of settler colonialism and capitalist neoglobalization. Most of her framework focuses on how to abolish border imperialism and give migrants justice against antioppressive Western regimes. As stated in her introduction her book tries to provide solutions to the various forms of violence such as, deportations, illegal suspicion and control over migrant workers. By doing this she also shows different testimonies of those affected by exclusion and border zones. She says that, “western regimes that create mass displacement, and are most severely deployed against those whose very recourse to migration results from the ravages of capital and military occupations” (6) . Because of this her central argument is that …show more content…
It is hard to give an exact explanation of what is border imperialism as each person experiences in a different way. As a born and raised Salvadorian I can argue that Border Imperialism is an idea that functions by the hand of capitalism in which migrants are used as cheap labor to create capital flows and ensure a dominant global economic system. Because migrants strive to have better opportunities in first world countries, they suffer displacements and suppression from a system that is designed to target all those who are consider “aliens” or illegal. As Harsha Walia states in her book, “Border Imperialism is characterized by the entrenchment and reentrenchment of controls against migrants, who are displaced as a result of the violence of capitalism and empire, and subsequently forced into precarious labor as a result of state illegalization and systematic social hierarchies” (38)1 . Therefore, borders are not meant to stop immigrants, they are symbol created by our oppressive system that punish them for economic advantage, even though they have constructed and exploit human and natural resources to provide wealth in first world