Miguel Diaz-Barriga

Residents of South Texas live in a " Constitution free zone, " as one of our informants explained. Court rulings have declared that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution does not apply at checkpoints and spaces up to 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border. This article draws upon Agamben's arguments about " states of exception " and Foucault's notion of the " carceral state " to show that border residents live in a state of legal exception, in which the modalities characteristic of mass incarcer-ation are extended from prison, where search and seizure is always classified as " reasonable, " into everyday life. We introduce the concept " state of carcelment " to describe how these modalities operate on the ground, through mass incarceration and internal checkpoints, to inter, so to speak, an entire region. With the potential diffusion of this " state of carcelment " beyond the border region, anthropologists are poised to critically engage its legal and cultural normalization. In her introduction, Mieka Polanco asks: " Who better [than anthropologists] to prob-lematize the 'common sense-ness' of mass incarceration—or of other more invisible (but equally racialized) forms of punishment perpetuated daily by the state? " We take up Polanco's call and interrogate the process through which the state of carcelment becomes normalized. More specifically, and as Angela Davis (2003) reminds us, we focus on the racialized and gendered nature of this process. We invite the reader to think of the meaning and process of interring an entire region—not by coincidence a region in which approximately 90 percent of the population is of Mexican origin. 1 Furthermore, we suggest that this state of carcelment not only centers on punishment and imprisonment but also relies on a state of exception, in which Fourth Amendment rights are suspended, producing specific modalities of power and citizenship. The characteristics of mass incarceration (and, in particular, the disproportionate incarcer-ation of people of Mexican descent) have been extended from prison, where search and seizure is always classifed as " reasonable, " to everyday life in the borderlands.

This article argues that visual representations of the U.S.–Mexico border wall in the popular media, including Time Magazine and National Geographic, portray the border region as lifeless and desolate. These representations negate the possibility of viewing the border as a dynamic and diverse area that is verdant and home to communities and rich cultural histories. The article begins with an overview of popular representations of the U.S.–Mexico border, focusing on the ways that this imagery reinforces calls for militarizing it. The authors then offer alternative representations of the border through their own anthropological photo essay of the U.S.–Mexico border wall. [Key words: border fence, Chicano/a studies, militarization, South Texas, U.S.–Mexico Border]

Announcement of Art exhibition in New York

This bilingual (English and Spanish) group exhibition will bring together work by artists, activists, architects and other public intellectuals who created alternative designs for the US Mexico border wall or fought its construction. The major questions that this exhibition will address include: How can we reassert a more populist notion of sovereignty by reimagining borders and border walls? What is the role of art and architecture in providing a bulwark against the erosion of democracy that border walls materialize?

Our work brings public attention to issues of migration as they are tied to sovereignty-making at international borders. This presentation features an internationally juried art exhibition that we curated at Apexart in Manhattan this summer. In the bilingual exhibition, Fencing in Democracy, we brought artists, human rights activists, architects and anthropologists into conversation about the affects of militarization on democracy and social justice.

A resolution condemning the proliferation of border walls. This resolution was passed by various sections within the American Anthropological Association in 2017. We are awaiting news from the Executive Board of AAA to see if they plan to do more with it.