Public Information Campaigns as a Mechanism of Border Enforcement in the US and Australia
Since the early 1990s, border and immigration enforcement has become a central focus for governments of the global north as they attempt to regulate unauthorized migration. The International Organization for Migration estimates that there are at least 50 million unauthorized migrants globally as more and more individuals and families flee violence, economic destitution, and environmental disasters and cross national borders in an attempt to find safety and security. In response, governments spend billions of dollars annually to combat unauthorized migration. Nearly $18 billion is allocated annually to border and immigration enforcement agencies in the US; this is more than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined. And during fiscal year 2017, the Australian government spent over $4 billion for “border protection”--including operating numerous off-shore detention centers for asylum seekers.This project examines the development, implementation, and geography of public information campaigns (PICs) as a strategy of border enforcement by the US and Australian governments. Both countries have developed and circulated PICs since the 1990s in an attempt to affect migrant decision-making and reduce unauthorized migration flows. This project utilizes mixed qualitative methods and feminist visualization strategies to understand the development, implementation, and impact of PICs as a technology of border enforcement and how the mobilization of PICs rework the geographies of border enforcement and state sovereignty globally.
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Funded by the National Science Foundation, the University at Albany College of Arts and Sciences, and the University of Arizona
THE TEAM
Jill Williams
Jill M. Williams is an Associate Research Professor in the Southwest Institute for Research on Women and affiliate faculty in the School of Geography, Development, and Environment at the University of Arizona. In her work, she employs a feminist geopolitical approach to examine the development, implementation, and uneven impacts of contemporary US border enforcement efforts. Research projects have explored state responses to migrant deaths and the humanitarianization of border enforcement; the mobilization of discourses of violence against women to justify border militarization; and the economies of profit and care that shape migrant family detention and release practices. Her research has been published in a range of venues including Political Geography, Geopolitics, Environment and Planning C, and Territory, Politics, & Governance.
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Kate Coddington
Kate Coddington is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University at Albany. She researches approaches to public policy dealing with migrants and postcolonial governance that influence processes of bordering and citizenship. Current research involves exploring the role of public information campaigns in border enforcement, the gaps in refugee governance in the Asia-Pacific region and the role of impoverishment and destitution in migration control policies. Recent work on refugees and border enforcement in the Asia-Pacific region has been published in Annals of the American Association of Geographers , Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Political Geography and in edited collections including Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration (Edward Elgar Press) and Territory Beyond Terra (Rowman & Littlefield International).
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Meghan Kelly
I’m a researcher and mapmaker at Dartmouth College and I work at the intersections of mapping and feminist theory. In my work, I apply feminist principles across spatial data, map design, and mapping processes to reveal and challenge systems of power, privilege, and oppression. This often takes place in collaborative workshop settings. I have applied this feminist mapping lens to migration stories, border symbolization, tiny map icons, incarceration and policing, the climate crises, and housing insecurity.
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RJ Johnson
Richard L. Johnson (RJ) is a PhD Candidate in Geography at the UA's School of Geography, Development and Environment. His research focuses on the implications of expanding US border and immigration enforcement — particularly deportation — for migrant-sending households and communities in Central America. Learn more about his work here:
https://rjgeo.weebly.com/ |
Georgia Weiss-Elliott
Georgia is a second-year master’s student at UA’s School of Geography, Development and Environment. Focusing on public information campaigns and how they challenge conventional depictions of border enforcement and where they operate, she hopes to encapsulate these trends using GIS and data visualization.
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