The study of borders blossomed after the end of the Cold War. This was due in part to the end of the Soviet Union and its disintegration into a host of new nation-states, as well as the eruption of ethnonational conflict and secessionist movements in Yugoslavia. Since that time, border studies continued to expand as globalization accelerated, this time shifting assumptions about the importance of borders as frontiers of absolute sovereignty, and instead considering how globalization was chipping away at political boundaries that divided states and nations.

Though the title of this book may suggest otherwise, Border Politics is less a work of political science than of sociology. (The editors are sociologists, as are the majority of the nineteen contributors.) This in no way lessens its potential value to political scientists, though some readers may find a number of approaches less than familiar. For example, of the three sections of the book, the first is devoted entirely to the application of gender as a category in the analysis of state borders and militarization. Moreover, the eleven case studies are grounded in thick description and ethnography: For better or worse, quantitative evidence is scarce, with much more space devoted to theoretical interpretations of qualitative observations.

Its value to political scientists, however, is the way in which it moves border studies beyond international relations’ deconstruction of Westphalian assumptions about borders, states, and sovereignty (e.g., see Nick Vaughan-Williams, Border Politics: the Limits of Sovereign Power, 2009). Rather, it seeks to bridge conceptual boundaries separating the sociology of border studies from the analysis of social movements.

The editors define “border politics” as an arena of “struggles around literal and figurative borders of inclusion and exclusion” (p. 2), while the editors define the book itself as a “feminist, inter-sectional approach to border politics, informed by border theory” (pp. 358–59). The case studies are nothing if not diverse, sometimes startling in their novelty, and are drawn from North America, Australia, Asia, Africa, and Europe. They include such topics as collective identity in the Tea Party, the politics of dam building in Lesotho, and LGBT activism in Europe. How these cases contribute to interstate border studies is not always entirely evident, though the cases are generally successful in their analysis of social boundaries. (To this end, a better title for this collection may have been Boundary Politics.)

The book is divided thematically. The first section, “Gendered, Ethno-National Struggles and Militarization” is a remarkable collection of case studies—one from North America and three from South Asia. The American case addresses the role of actual grandmothers (and women more generally) at the U.S./Mexico border as they sustain an ethnonational project “to police the geopolitical, legal and cultural boundaries of the nation” (p. 35), principally by supporting the Minutemen, essentially nativist vigilantes policing the Arizona border. An Indian study considers the role or right-wing Hindu nationalist women who conflate personal self-defense with national self-defense, thereby deepening the social divide between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Drawing on ethnographic research, the author posits these women maintain a siege mentality that mobilizes fear and hate of the Other (specifically Muslim men). A separate Indian study considers the role of women in the Naga separatist movement and its concomitant peace process, specifically in regard to the social frontier between Nagas in Nagaland and Meiteis in Manipur. It concludes women’s organizations have been instrumental in building peace by challenging members of their own communities and, when necessary, engaging in politics directly on both sides of the border.

Moving west, another chapter examines women engaged in violent protest during the 2007 siege of the Lal Masjid, or “Red Mosque,” in Islamabad, Pakistan. More than a hundred female students (wearing burqas and wielding bamboo sticks) joined the male students who demanded an end to secularism (and therefore immorality). The author examines transnational media coverage and finds the women were portrayed alternately as freedom fighters or as captive victims. Along the way, the author makes a rather surprising claim as she boldly asserts, “the United States, as a hetero-normative nation, relies on, benefits from and eroticizes (repressed) female terrorists” (p. 121).

The second section, “Politicized Identities and Belonging,” addresses the definition and representation of collective identities within border politics, including those communities marked by a distinctive ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, or sexuality. It considers how globalization confronts a citizen/non-citizen binary. For example, the first case study considers how indigenous peoples—principally in Australia but also in Canada and the United States—seek international recognition of a pan-Indigenous identity. This identity (as evidenced in the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) transcends international borders. However, the author also shows indigenous peoples must, at the same time, maintain a distinct local identity to engage their own governments.

Also addressing a politicized collective identity, the case of the Florida Tea Party is examined as a social movement dedicated to shrinking the definition of “American” by expressly excluding illegal immigrants and “socialists.” The authors argue such a collective identity is actually a dynamic project, “a cycle of protest rather than a product of a specific moment in time” (p. 202). Separately, the collective identity of ethnic minorities in Slovenia is examined in the context of the country’s declaration of independence (and redrawing of the international border). In 1992, Slovenia revoked the citizenship of its ethnic minority workers, redefining them as “foreigners.” Finally, sexuality is considered as an identity marker as the LGBT community in Europe and seeks to transcend state borders, offering an opportunity to seek greater political leverage than is otherwise possible at the intrastate level.

The third section, “Contested Solidarities and Emerging Sites of Struggle,” examines the growth of globalization and transnational social movements, some of which are more successful than others. For example, when mobilizing against a mega-dam project, locals in Lesotho joined forces with transnational environmental activists, but quickly found their goals were valued less than those of the international activists. Also less than successful was the “No Border” movement in Ukraine, which sought greater freedom of movement into and out of the EU. Initially, it enjoyed a transnational political culture that celebrated European unity (to include Ukraine), but the movement ultimately failed as a result of the formation of internal social boundaries. On the other hand, women’s organizations in the border region of Tijuana and San Diego are more successful in providing a space for the political participation of workers across power differentials of ethnicity and class.

The case studies will reward comparativists on a case-by-case basis. Researchers writing on Nagaland, for example, will find great value in that chapter—if for no other reason than the fact that high-quality literature on Nagaland is limited—but need not explore the book further. Theorists, on the other hand, and students of border politics more generally, will find the contributions by the editors helpful as they provide a valuable review of border study discourse. Moreover, the introduction and conclusion do an admirable job of weaving together the theoretical commonalities of the otherwise disparate case studies. While covering some terrain and using some language generally unfamiliar to political scientists, this is a unique compilation of extraordinary case studies that broadens our interdisciplinary understanding of border studies writ large.