Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move

Resumen del libro

Original investigative reporting from award-winning scholar and expert on border issues, probing the ongoing migrant crisis

Forty thousand human beings died trying to cross international borders in the past decade, with the high profile deaths along the shores of Europe only accounting for half of the grisly total. 14 million people were displaced by war in 2014, the largest number in a single year since World War II. In Violent Borders, Reece Jones argues that these deaths are not exceptional, but rather the result of state attempts to contain populations and control access to resources and opportunities.

Jones reports first hand from global hot spots on the tragic consequences of borders on millions of poor suffering from the effects of war, exploitation, climate change and global wealth inequality. With an engaging, narrative style, Jones humanizes the global migrant crisis and provides a historical context to the formation and enforcement of borders. Violent Borders disputes the idea that borders are a natural part of the human world and necessary for the security of rich nations, and makes the argument that the hardening of the border through new security practices is the source of the violence, not a response to it.