Search

In northwestern Washington State, the United States Border Patrol expanded its operations inland from the international boundary with Canada in 2007. The expansion resulted in the frequent questioning and detention of community members who are Latino, non-timber forest workers, and people of color until such practices became less common by 2012. These tactics reflect a broader pattern of racial profiling through inland policing implemented across the US border with Canada. In this paper, I make the case for a critical race approach to understanding bordering practices in settings coded as 'peaceful' or without racial tensions. Towards this end, I analyze how racialized exclusions in northwestern Washington are articulated across scales, from local forest management, to federal policy. Further, I trace the relational construction of the western US borderlands with Canada and Mexico - spaces connected by a common heritage of conquest, although generally not conceptualized as such. My argument is that racial thinking is inherent to the production and maintenance of United States borders. A critical race approach is crucial at a time when practices carried out in the name of 'homeland security' threaten the wellbeing of borderland communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Canada-U.S. borderlands relationship along the two geographic corridors as bounded by Lake Superior: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario–Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Thunder Bay, Ontario–Duluth, Minnesota. Borderland communities—driven by their shared cultural characteristics (ethnicity, language, religion)—are said to challenge the border as a dividing device and undermine the very essence of international borders. Moreover, borderlands regions are dynamic and overlapping, providing the first point of contact and interaction between nations. We use interviews of over 200 people living in these borderlands regions to investigate the cross-border relationships of Canada-U.S. border communities. We find that despite the challenges of crossing the border, these communities retain a strong sense of shared values. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The border effect states that Canadian provinces trade substantially more with other provinces than the United States after controlling for economic size and distance. This border effect is listed as one of the six puzzles of international economics and has spawned a plethora of research investigating its existence, magnitude, and, most recently, a solution. This article investigates this solution in order to determine if it is robust. After identifying possible economic and statistical mis-specification, the solution is shown to be robust. Therefore, the border effect is reduced to a reasonable magnitude, but it also changes its sign to become consistent with expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the history of African American and African Canadian transnationalism during the period of the U.S. civil war, with a particular analysis of the experiences of African American minister Reverend Madison J. Lightfoot. The author explores Lightfoot's role in the founding of Detroit, Michigan's Second Baptist Church, discusses his role in the Detroit Blackburn Riots of 1833, and discusses his migration from America to Canada. He explains that Lightfoot remained active in the politics of Detroit while living in Canada.

The essay focuses on the symbolic meanings behind migrations and the history of the International Underground Railroad Memorial in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario. The author discusses the history of migration through the antislavery movement Underground Railroad, explores the relationship between American and Canadian cultures on the U.S.-Canada border, and explains how borders influence the meaning of nation.

Americans and Canadians are reevaluating and reinventing the borderlines and borderlands that both divide and link two nation-states and many cultures and regions. The social construction of borderlands culture now conflates imagination, identity and affinity. Reimagination of the border is led inordinately by fear, and the powerful forces of securitization and militarization by the United States. Identity now requires verification at the border according to national standards where numerous hybrid, transient, and traditional forms are not acknowledged or tolerated. Borderlands, once an amorphous and extensive construct of affinity, are now emerging as scaled-down, managed corridors and gateways where “top down” visions for national security and identity fail to align with “bottom up” regional, community, and cross-border organizational reimagination of how the border works. Borderlands culture is challenged in the twenty-first century as Americans and Canadians attempt to reinvent the border between them yet risk the loss of the borderland integration that assures continuity and sustainability in a rapidly evolving global reconstruction of space and place. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses illegal drug trafficking across the U.S.-Canadian border during the mid-20th century, with a particular focus on the trade in heroin. According to the author, cross-border interactions between Americans and Canadians along the Great Lakes Border Region facilitated a mobile economy that was shaped by both transnational and local geographies and conditions. Details on the heroin market in Detroit, Michigan, Toronto, Ontario, and Windsor, Ontario are presented.