Abstract
This chapter offers a description of the book Border Rules: An Abolitionist Refusal, which examines both border policies and oppositional narratives of “the border,” demonstrating that the term designates not merely a line of territorial control but also a set of social relations shaped by persistent, racially differentiated colonial structures and, more recently, by neoliberal modes of accumulation. The book explores these social relations in three ways: (1) in Chap. 2, by analyzing the official border policies and dominant representations of migrants and the border in the present (2021–2022)—an analysis informed, of course, by the long history of these policies and representations; (2) by reviewing the critical literature on borders (in Chap. 3); and (3) in Chaps. 4, 5 and 6, by critiquing a range of cultural texts (two novels, two films, and two murals examined in conjunction with a music video), texts that offer oppositional accounts of two specific border zones, US–Mexico and the EU–Southern Mediterranean, during a specific time period, 2011–2021. Finally, in the concluding chapter (Chap. 7), a way forward is suggested—an abolitionist refusal of border rules with an insistence on the necessity for abolition.