Borders, Walls and Fences: State of Insecurity?

August 9, 2011, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Photo of the U.S.-Mexico border fence outside of Nogales, Arizona

An international conference organized by the Raoul Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec at Montreal in association with the Association for Borderlands Studies and the North American Center for Transborder Studies.

Conference Theme:                                                                 

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question still remains "Do good fences still make good neighbors"? Since the Great Wall of China, construction of which began under the Qin dynasty, the Antonine Wall, built in Scotland to support Hadrian's Wall, the Roman "Limes" or the Danevirk fence, the "wall" has been a constant in the protection of defined entities claiming sovereignty, East and West. But is the wall more than an historical relict for the management of borders? In recent years, the wall has been given renewed vigor in North America, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Israel-Palestine. But the success of these new walls in the development of friendly and orderly relations between nations (or indeed, within nations) remains unclear. What role does the wall play in the development of security and insecurity? Do walls contribute to a sense of insecurity as much as they assuage fears and create a sense of security for those 'behind the line'? Exactly what kind of security is associated with border walls?

NACTS will present a paper on a review of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s investments in security including the Secure Border Initiative, the walls and fences and their predecessors, and reduction of risk to threats and vulnerabilities offered by the myriad walls and electronic defenses.  The value of an external perimeter will also be assessed.

For more information, see the Raoul Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

Click here to download the call for papers. 


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