Doctoral Dissertation Research: Free Agents: The Civilian Patrol of America's Borders

Primary Investigators: Karen Barkey and Harel Shapira Title: Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Civilian Defense of America's Borders 0720270 Abstract Based on a combination of ethnographic fieldwork and documentary analysis, this project examines how and why civilians have recently made themselves active participants in the defense of America's borders. The research focuses on the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, a volunteer based civilian organization whose primary activity is the patrol of the United States / Mexico Border with the aim of assisting the Border Patrol in the apprehension of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States. Current accounts of the Minutemen tend to give psychopathological explanations of the group which explain them away as "racist" and in so doing stress subjective, irrational motivations. This research moves away from such a framework, providing an analysis which examines the concrete set of concepts and categories the Minutemen employ and the specific social practices they undertake. Unlike the current media accounts which tend to give uncomplicated explanations of the group wherein attention is given to private ideologies and not actual social processes or conditions, this research connects the emergence of the Minutemen to a larger set of social changes which have taken place. This dissertation has significance for a general understanding of contemporary American society, when members of the polity have been called upon to act with increased vigilance and illegal immigration has emerged as a critical focus of political discourse effecting peoples understandings of peace and security. Civilians, and the relations between state and civilians, except in analyses of inchoate national states, have been neglected variables in the study of borders. The dominant account conceptualizes the management of borders as the work of federal officials seeking to control access to formally delineated rights and entitlements. Accounting for the role of civilians enlarges our understanding of the meaning, status, and function of borders, as well as the very ways they are produced and the social practices which they support and are supported by.