Humanitarian Borders by Pallister-Wilkins

Introduction by
Natalie Oswin
Published
May 15, 2023
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"Humanitarian Borders" is intended as a caution against seeing humanitarian life saving efforts at borders as a panacea or as a sustainable solution rooted in justice to the violence and harm caused by unequal mobility. Humanitarian borderwork, she argues, does quite the opposite. It allows border violence to continue.

T

he winner of 2023’s International Political Sociology Book Award, Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives by Polly Pallister-Wilkins brings to life the central role of border violence in creating the deadly conditions to which humanitarian interventions are the response. In the book, she asks and answers two central questions: one, why do we have humanitarian action at borders? And two, what do humanitarian responses at borders do politically? In answering the first question the book makes clear that it is the lack of safe passage that necessitates humanitarian intervention at sea, in deserts, along transport arteries and where people’s mobility to seek life gets stopped, blocked and diverted. Tracing the development of these unequal forms of mobility through time with explorations of the role of passports and visas, Pallister-Wilkins makes clear that violent borders and unequal mobility are the result of political choices and decisions that governments have made to keep out those considered undesirable and to maintain white supremacy. In answering the second question the book shows that humanitarianism at borders is, therefore, not inevitable.

In exploring the politics of what she calls humanitarian borderwork, Pallister-Wilkins makes clear that humanitarianism is a liberal rationality with a history that is intertwined with historical efforts at governing undesirable populations through keeping people alive but not equal. Through a focus on border police, NGO actors, and grassroots activists, she reveals how humanitarian borderwork strengthens and expands borders through increasing border policing budgets, widening zones of intervention, by offering normative, idealistic reasons for intervening in people’s journeys and directing civil society attention towards lifesaving efforts rather than political organising around the conditions of the border and unequal mobility itself. Ultimately, Humanitarian Borders is intended as a caution against seeing humanitarian life saving efforts at borders as a panacea or as a sustainable solution rooted in justice to the violence and harm caused by unequal mobility. Humanitarian borderwork, she argues, does quite the opposite. It allows border violence to continue.

This forum on this important book includes six generative reflections on the work and a response from Pallister-Wilkins. Anja Franck offers a reading of the “perhaps somewhat unexpected ways” in which Humanitarian Borders presents possibilities to ‘think otherwise’ by highlighting the “inherent absurdity and obscenity” of what Pallister-Wilkins terms the ‘humanitarianesque carnival.’ Elisa Pascucci praises the text as “a lucid, cogent, rich yet concise account of humanitarianism as an always paradoxical and often violent response to the injustices of unequal mobility.” Neske Baerwaldt and Wiebe Ruijtenberg argue for the need to pay attention to forms of care and life saving work that shrink borders and hope that Humanitarian Borders inspires the building of life-affirming institutions. Nisha Toomey finds that: “Reading Pallister-Wilkins’ observations about care, control and rescue as core manifestations of both humanitarian and bordering practice alongside Black and Indigenous feminist theories, we learn how care is instrumentalized to mask inequity and violence.” Hanno Brankamp explores the ways that the book invites readers to critically rethink, and begin to remake, humanitarian action with the ultimate aim of dismantling the ‘global colour line.’ Samid Suliman reflects on the ways that Pallister-Wilkins’ analysis helps to “close the geographical and conceptual distance between Mediterranean ‘deathscapes’, and [his] own land [Australia], girt by an increasingly violent sea, a world away.” Finally, Polly Pallister-Wilkins engages her interlocutors in a closing essay that reaffirms the anger at the limits of a liberal politics of rescue that drives the text, offers compelling reasons for some of its absences, and situates her work in collaborative conversation with many scholars and activists seeking to craft alternative, just futures.  

Natalie Oswin is associate professor of human geography at University of Toronto Scarborough and managing editor of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and the Society and Space Magazine.

essays in this forum

The Humanitarianesque Carnival: Absurdity and the Possibility to Think Otherwise

"Humanitarian Borders" offers us, in perhaps somewhat unexpected ways, the possibility to ‘think otherwise’ through consistently highlighting the inherent absurdity and obscenity of what Pallister-Wilkins terms the ‘humanitarianesque carnival.’

By

Anja Franck

The Humanitarianesque Carnival at the End of the European Game

"Humanitarian Borders" by Polly Pallister-Wilkins does many things, all of them beautifully. For me, it tells the story of an island, a looping “crisis”, and a carnival.

By

Elisa Pascucci

Humanitarian Borders, Revolutionary Care

Some care is revolutionary, and revolutionary struggles are rooted in an ethic of caring for and with. In the context of borders that kill, we need to pay attention to forms of care and life-saving that shrink borders.

By

Neske Baerwaldt, Wiebe Ruijtenberg

The Perverse Logics of Care in the Afterlife of Slavery: Reading Humanitarian Borders

Reading Pallister-Wilkins’ observations about care, control and rescue as core manifestations of both humanitarian and bordering practice alongside Black and Indigenous feminist theories, we learn how care is instrumentalized to mask inequity and violence.

By

Nisha Toomey

Migrant “Voices” and Life Saving Beyond Humanitarianism?

Humanitarian Borders is an invitation to critically rethink (and begin to remake) humanitarian action with the ultimate aim of dismantling the ‘global colour line’.

By

Hanno Brankamp

Mediterranean Crossings, Down Under

‍“Humanitarian Borders" helps us to close the geographical and conceptual distance between Mediterranean “deathscapes”, and my own land, girt by an increasingly violent sea, a world away.

By

Samid Suliman

Humanitarian Borders and the Futures Struggling to be Born

"Humanitarian Borders" is an expression of Pallister-Wilkins’ anger at the limits of a liberal politics of rescue and a caution against seeing “life-saving efforts as a panacea or as a sustainable and just ‘solution’ to the violence and harm caused by unequal mobility.”

By

Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Humanitarian Borders by Pallister-Wilkins

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cholars and practitioners of urban planning need to rethink the field’s futures at this important historical juncture: some might call it a moment of truth when there is little left to hide. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed many cracks, contradictions, and inequalities that have always existed but are now more visible. This also includes the global vaccine apartheid that is ongoing as I write these words. Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

What’s a Rich Text element?

Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

  • Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed.
  • Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real.
  • They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining.
  • I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

What’s a Rich Text element?

Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

  1. Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed.
  2. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real.
  3. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

What’s a Rich Text element?

Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

What’s a Rich Text element?

Moreover, this is a time when the violence through which U.S. imperialism has exercised power worldwide is increasingly exposed. Protests in the summer of 2020, which spread all over the United States like fire through a long-dried haystack, showed Americans and the whole world that racialized violence and police brutality are real. They also revealed that such brutality is spatially facilitated in American apartheid—a condition that planning has been far from innocent in creating and maintaining. I think this reckoning is particularly important in the United States, the belly of the beast, where there might have been more of an illusion about planning innocence.

What’s a Rich Text element?

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T

he winner of 2023’s International Political Sociology Book Award, Humanitarian Borders: Unequal Mobility and Saving Lives by Polly Pallister-Wilkins brings to life the central role of border violence in creating the deadly conditions to which humanitarian interventions are the response. In the book, she asks and answers two central questions: one, why do we have humanitarian action at borders? And two, what do humanitarian responses at borders do politically? In answering the first question the book makes clear that it is the lack of safe passage that necessitates humanitarian intervention at sea, in deserts, along transport arteries and where people’s mobility to seek life gets stopped, blocked and diverted. Tracing the development of these unequal forms of mobility through time with explorations of the role of passports and visas, Pallister-Wilkins makes clear that violent borders and unequal mobility are the result of political choices and decisions that governments have made to keep out those considered undesirable and to maintain white supremacy. In answering the second question the book shows that humanitarianism at borders is, therefore, not inevitable.

In exploring the politics of what she calls humanitarian borderwork, Pallister-Wilkins makes clear that humanitarianism is a liberal rationality with a history that is intertwined with historical efforts at governing undesirable populations through keeping people alive but not equal. Through a focus on border police, NGO actors, and grassroots activists, she reveals how humanitarian borderwork strengthens and expands borders through increasing border policing budgets, widening zones of intervention, by offering normative, idealistic reasons for intervening in people’s journeys and directing civil society attention towards lifesaving efforts rather than political organising around the conditions of the border and unequal mobility itself. Ultimately, Humanitarian Borders is intended as a caution against seeing humanitarian life saving efforts at borders as a panacea or as a sustainable solution rooted in justice to the violence and harm caused by unequal mobility. Humanitarian borderwork, she argues, does quite the opposite. It allows border violence to continue.

This forum on this important book includes six generative reflections on the work and a response from Pallister-Wilkins. Anja Franck offers a reading of the “perhaps somewhat unexpected ways” in which Humanitarian Borders presents possibilities to ‘think otherwise’ by highlighting the “inherent absurdity and obscenity” of what Pallister-Wilkins terms the ‘humanitarianesque carnival.’ Elisa Pascucci praises the text as “a lucid, cogent, rich yet concise account of humanitarianism as an always paradoxical and often violent response to the injustices of unequal mobility.” Neske Baerwaldt and Wiebe Ruijtenberg argue for the need to pay attention to forms of care and life saving work that shrink borders and hope that Humanitarian Borders inspires the building of life-affirming institutions. Nisha Toomey finds that: “Reading Pallister-Wilkins’ observations about care, control and rescue as core manifestations of both humanitarian and bordering practice alongside Black and Indigenous feminist theories, we learn how care is instrumentalized to mask inequity and violence.” Hanno Brankamp explores the ways that the book invites readers to critically rethink, and begin to remake, humanitarian action with the ultimate aim of dismantling the ‘global colour line.’ Samid Suliman reflects on the ways that Pallister-Wilkins’ analysis helps to “close the geographical and conceptual distance between Mediterranean ‘deathscapes’, and [his] own land [Australia], girt by an increasingly violent sea, a world away.” Finally, Polly Pallister-Wilkins engages her interlocutors in a closing essay that reaffirms the anger at the limits of a liberal politics of rescue that drives the text, offers compelling reasons for some of its absences, and situates her work in collaborative conversation with many scholars and activists seeking to craft alternative, just futures.  

Natalie Oswin is associate professor of human geography at University of Toronto Scarborough and managing editor of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space and the Society and Space Magazine.