Beyond the Border

Dismissing the American Great Plains and the Canadian Prairies as places people merely pass over misreads them. Since 9/11, lawmakers and officials have turned their attention to the region, particularly to how the border is policed. This volume approaches that shift from several disciplines at once, examining why the area is growing in importance.

The contributors build on a point made by Habermas: ecological damage, organized crime, and the free movement of capital all weaken a state's ability to govern a fixed territory. Starting from that idea, they question whether the Canada-US border has a settled, self-evident existence. Their chapters examine how entertainment media portrays the boundary to its audiences, how each country enforces the line, and what the border looks like to Native communities whose traditional lands it cut through. Viewed from these angles, the border seems far less fixed than it usually appears.

As border security receives growing emphasis and the Great Plains and Prairies gain economic and political weight, the book offers readers background for understanding the decisions that politicians and policy-makers make along the forty-ninth parallel.