“In Intimate Borders, Amy Reed-Sandoval offers a decolonial, feminist theory of borders that enables us to perceive hidden gender injustices at borders and then take concrete steps to stop them. Grounded in feminist privacy ethics, Chicana feminism, Indigenous philosophies of borders and space, and original ethnographic research conducted by Reed-Sandoval at two abortion clinics in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, this book challenges political philosophy’s public/private divide by urging us to understand borders as intimate. Specifically, it argues that borders are sites of embodied and identity-based harms that often tamper with the boundaries of our “selves” in ways that impact our personal autonomy.
Reed-Sandoval also critically investigates unhelpful dichotomies. Intimate Borders calls into question popular, all-or-nothing proposals for both “open” and “closed borders,” arguing instead that a feminist approach to borders requires careful exploration of how different borders (including non-Western borders) may both cause and protect against intimate harms of vulnerable groups. This book unpacks some of the most urgent and under-theorized ethical challenges presented at borders today, including border-crossings for abortion care, the migration of children, pregnancy and miscarriage at borders, family separations at borders, and the complicated relationship between borders and Indigenous identities. Intimate Borders is a theoretical framework for feminist migration scholars, policy makers, activists, and anyone else who wishes to raise awareness of gender injustice at the world’s borders.”
Available for purchase here.
“This is an excellent book. It expands the terrain of philosophical discussions about justice and irregular migration. Reed-Sandoval shows how identities of race and class intersect with perceptions of legal status and why this matters from both philosophical and policy perspectives. More generally, the book demonstrates how much philosophical reflection can be enriched by moving beyond the clarification of principles and paying attention to what actually happens in the world.”—Joseph H. Carens, University of Toronto
“Reed-Sandoval’s book offers a new approach to understanding the situation of undocumented persons in the United States: as a form of social identity. Her analysis will undoubtedly help us move from overly abstract and decontextualized debates about immigrant rights to a more realistic discussion about real world conditions and experiences. A must-read.”— Linda Martín Alcoff, Hunter College and the Graduate Center CUNY
“The book provides an exciting, thought-provoking and innovative approach to immigration justice, while offering methodological tools that allow us to explore immigration justice from new perspectives … The book’s contribution to the immigration justice debate is particularly valuable, as it enhances our understanding of the different kinds of oppression to which immigrants are subjected.” — Anna Milioni, King’s College London, for Res Publica
Overview
Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice explores how “being socially undocumented” in the United States constitutes having a “real” social identity, and what this means for immigration justice within the United States and on a global scale. It argues phenomenologically that people with “socially undocumented identity” are those who are (a) presumed to be undocumented on the mere basis of their appearances; and (b) subjected to oppressive immigration-related constraints on that basis. On a normative level, it argues that the fact that many people experience both (a) and (b) constitutes immigration injustice in the United States (and beyond). The book also explores moral challenges connected to pregnancy and socially undocumented identity, and it offers a new perspective on the philosophical open borders debate.
For more information, check out my interview with Sarah K. Tyson at the New Books Network about Socially Undocumented, and this symposium on the book in Philosophy Today.
Available for purchase here.
“Unique and timely, Latin American Immigration Ethics takes seriously the heterogeneity of experiences that makes up Latin American immigration and lends it philosophical dimension. A significant contribution to the literature, the essays included here are singularly unique. Required reading for anyone interested in this topic.”—Carlos Alberto Sánchez, author of A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy and Narco Culture
Overview
Following an extended period of near silence on the subject, many social and political philosophers are now treating immigration as a central theme of the discipline. For the first time, this edited volume brings together original works by prominent philosophers writing about immigration ethics from within a Latin American context.
Without eschewing relevant conceptual resources derived from European and Anglo-American philosophies, the essays in this book emphasize Latin American and Latinx philosophies, decolonial and feminist theories, and Indigenous philosophies of Latin America, in the pursuit of an immigration ethics. The contributors explore the moral challenges of immigration that either arise within Latin America, or when Latin Americans and Latina/o/xs migrate to and reside within the United States. Uniquely, some chapters focus on south to south migration. Contributors also examine Latina/o/x experiences in the United States, addressing the lacuna of philosophical writing on migration, maternity, and childhood.
Latin American Immigration Ethics advances philosophical conversations and debates about immigration by theorizing migration from the Latin American and Latinx context.
Contributors
Luis Rubén Díaz Cepeda, Lori Gallegos, Margaret Griesse, Eduardo Mendieta, José Jorge Mendoza, Amos Nascimento, Carlos Pereda, Silvana Rabinovich, Amy Reed-Sandoval, Raul Villarroel, Allison Wolf
“La migración no es un fenómeno nuevo, sino que se da desde los albores de la humanidad; sin embargo, con el surgimiento de los Estados nación esta tendría, además de las barreras naturales, obstáculos sociopolíticos que impedirían la libre circulación de las personas. En nuestro tiempo y contexto estas barreras se manifestaron abiertamente en 2018 con la ola migratoria de centroamericanos que buscaban llegar a Estados Unidos, a través de México, solo para encontrar la frontera cerrada. Esta crisis migratoria creada por el gobierno de Trump, y que aún no ha sido resuelta por la nueva administración federal del presidente Joe Biden, visibilizó para la población no-académica las diversas problemáticas de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México.
En Ética, política y migración cerca de una veintena de estudiosas(os) de la migración buscan dar respuesta a las inquietudes surgidas en ese periodo. Con este fin, analizan la trayectoria migrante desde su ingreso por la frontera sur, su tránsito por el territorio nacional y su espera en la frontera norte en espera de poder ingresar a Estados Unidos. Asimismo, reflexionan sobre aspectos propios de la vida en la línea divisoria, tales como la comunidad binacional transfronteriza, el Corredor Energético-Militar y la vida silvestre en la línea fronteriza. Esta obra presenta, entonces, una visión panorámica de la problemática causada por políticas nacionalistas y unilaterales, dando al público lector una introducción a los insumos necesarios para un amplio entendimiento del fenómeno migratorio.”
Amy Reed-Sandoval 