A Border Is Not a Wall
It’s much more interesting.
Borders are an invention, and not even an especially old one. Predated by the printing press by a good two hundred years, borders are constantly under revision. Even the zone of the border itself, the Supreme Court has held, extends far beyond the technical outline of a nation. Imagine the border as the human-made thing that it is, and it’s no longer surprising that it takes a multitude of forms: a line on a map, a fence, a bundle of legal agreements, a set of sensors, a room in an airport, a metaphor.
As Elia Zureik and Mark B. Salter , a controlled border creates the notion that domestic space is safe. Protecting “the border” safeguards the home, family, and way of life. This idea of
