Banal materiality and the idea of sovereignty: The migration funnel effect and the policing of the U.S.-Mexico border, 2000-2016

- This paper mobilizes primary material evidence and analyzes spatiotemporal trends to explore the role of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in enforcing the contemporary border, particularly in terms of the trend known as the migration funnel effect.
- Enabling a comparative view of migration and border security, the variables considered include the left behind belongings of undocumented migrants, migrant death records, and the physical infrastructure of border security.
- Three distinct periods associated with the increased walling and shifting migration patterns are proposed.
- This paper utilizes an intertwined theoretical framing building on theories of sovereignty and materiality.
- This innovative analysis combines ethnography, document analysis, archaeological survey, and GIS.