ABOUT THIS BOOK

The northern and southern borders and borderlands of the United States should have much in common; instead they offer mirror articulations of the complex relationships and engagements between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. In North American Borders in Comparative Perspectiveleading experts provide a contemporary analysis of how globalization and security imperatives have redefined the shared border regions of these three nations.

This volume offers a comparative perspective on North American borders and reveals the distinctive nature first of the overportrayed Mexico-U.S. border and then of the largely overlooked Canada-U.S. border. The perspectives on either border are rarely compared. Essays in this volume bring North American borders into comparative focus; the contributors advance the understanding of borders in a variety of theoretical and empirical contexts pertaining to North America with an intense sharing of knowledge, ideas, and perspectives.

Adding to the regional analysis of North American borders and borderlands, this book cuts across disciplinary and topical areas to provide a balanced, comparative view of borders. Scholars, policy makers, and practitioners convey perspectives on current research and understanding of the United States’ borders with its immediate neighbors. Developing current border theories, the authors address timely and practical border issues that are significant to our understanding and management of North American borderlands.

The future of borders demands a deep understanding of borderlands and borders. This volume is a major step in that direction.

Contributors
Bruce Agnew
Donald K. Alper
Alan D. Bersin
Christopher Brown
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly
Irasema Coronado
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
Michelle Keck
Victor Konrad
Francisco Lara-Valencia
Tony Payan
Kathleen Staudt
Rick Van Schoik
Christopher Wilson

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is an associate professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and nonresident scholar at the Baker Institute’s Mexico Center at Rice University. Correa-Cabrera is also co-editor of the International Studies Perspectives (ISP) journal.

Victor Konrad teaches geography at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He is a former president of both the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States and the Association for Borderlands Scholars, and he is a recipient of the Donner Medal. Author of more than one hundred publications, he has been the founding director of the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program and a visiting professor at universities in China, the United States, and Europe.
 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Preface
Introduction. The International Boundary Perimeter of the United States of America: Two Borders and Many Borderlands
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Victor Konrad
North American Borders in Maps
PART I. REPLACING BORDERS BETWEEN MEXICO, THE UNITED STATES, AND CANADA
1. Actors, Strategic Fields, and Game Rules: Examining Governance at the U.S.-Mexico Border in the Twenty-First Century
Tony Payan
2. Reimagining the Border Between Canada and the United States
Victor Konrad
3. Twenty-First- Century North American Borders: More Fixed, Fuzzy, Flexible, Fluid, or Free? Sovereignty Lesson from Around the Globe
Rick Van Schoik
PART II. SPACES, DIVISIONS, AND CONNECTIVITY IN NORTH AMERICAN BORDERLANDS
4. Transborder Spaces and Regional Identity in North America
Francisco Lara-Valencia
5. Territorial Divisive and Connective Spaces: Shifting Meanings of Borders in the North American Borderlands
Donald K. Alper
6. Lines and Flows 2: The Beginning and End of Borders in North America
Alan D. Bersin
PART III. BORDER GOVERNANCE IN NORTH AMERICA
7. Borders in Globalization: The Twenty-First- Century Globalization and Border Governance
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly
8. Border Narratives in a Neoliberal Era: The Central U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Kathleen Staudt
9. Empowering Borderlands: Lessons from Cascadia and the Pacific Northwest
Bruce Agnew
PART IV. INTEGRATION AND BORDER POLICY DIRECTIONS IN NORTH AMERICA
10. North American Energy Ties Across Unequal Borders: Canada-U. S.-Mexico Energy Integration in Times of Border Disruption
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Michelle Keck
11. Maturing Cross-Border Cooperation for Economic Development
Christopher Wilson
12. Comparative Examination of Binational Watershed Research in North America: From Case Studies to a Continental Gestalt
Christopher Brown
13. A Model for Trilateral Collaboration: The Commission for Environmental Cooperation: Whither the CEC?
Irasema Coronado

Conclusion. Toward North American Integration?
Victor Konrad and Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
Contributors
Index