Border Frictions: Gender, Generation and Technology on the Frontline

Border Frictions explores how political efforts and state resources have made bordering a matter of security and trade facilitation, and how surveillance technologies have pushed their control beyond and inside geopolitical borderlines. It illuminates features seldom reviewed by critical border scholars, such as the fraught circulation of data, the role of unions in shaping the border policy, the significance of professional socialization, and evidence of the masculinization of bordering.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 220 pages
Publication date: 13 June 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book delves into the historical transformation of Canadian border officers from customs officials to border police, examining the political, economic, and technological factors that have shaped this shift. From the 1990s onwards, it traces the evolution of a customs organization into a border-policing agency, emphasizing the significant investments made in surveillance technologies and the growing emphasis on security and trade facilitation.

Through in-depth interviews with border officers, ethnographic research at land border ports of entry, and policy analysis, Border Frictions sheds light on various aspects of border policing that have been overlooked by critical border scholars. These include the complex circulation of data, the role of unions in shaping border policy agendas, the importance of professional socialization in creating distinct generations of security workers, and evidence of the masculinization of bordering.

In the context of surveillance technologies that extend control beyond geopolitical borders, Côté-Boucher questions the rationale behind deploying coercive bordering tactics at the land border. Written in a clear and engaging style, this book appeals to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, social theory, politics, and geography, as well as those interested in understanding the everyday realities of policing the border.

Weight: 410g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032336534