Marie-Eve Loiselle is a Lecturer at Macquarie Law School.

"Marie-Eve Loiselle embeds the enduring fantasy of a wall between the US and Mexico in a rich inlay of contexts, historical, cultural, and material. Building Walls, Constructing Identities situates recent efforts in a much longer history than is often supposed, and demonstrates how they are expressive of anxieties and performative of identities. Her analysis includes close readings of the undercurrents and ideologies hidden in legal texts, parliamentary debates, and archives. But she also reminds us that, whether in the US or around the world, these walls literally embody the state. Their imposing physical presence and powerful affective charge transform the lives of all those who dwell in their shadow. In writing that is lucid and compelling throughout, Loiselle brings an engrossing range of interdisciplinary materials to bear on a controversial global phenomenon. Hers is an exciting and imaginative contribution to scholarship on an important issue."—Desmond Manderson, Australian National University "Beautifully written and richly documented, this book challenges the conventional narrative about the US-Mexico border in formative ways. It does so by revisiting the timeline of the authorization to build the border wall, reinterpreting the function of the wall as a marker of national identity, and reinscribing spatiality into the legal analysis of regimes of border control. With immigration high on the agenda in every corner of the world, this book offers a profound guide to exposing injustices hidden in plain sight."—Ayelet Shachar, author of The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Wall Building (a) Nation1. Looking at the Wall through the Law2. Drawing the Contours of the Nation3. The Wall We Need4. The Wall as LawConclusion: Looking Back to the FutureAppendix: A Tour of the US-Mexico BorderlandNotesBibliographyIndex

Marie-Eve Loiselle is a Lecturer at Macquarie Law School.

"Marie-Eve Loiselle embeds the enduring fantasy of a wall between the US and Mexico in a rich inlay of contexts, historical, cultural, and material. Building Walls, Constructing Identities situates recent efforts in a much longer history than is often supposed, and demonstrates how they are expressive of anxieties and performative of identities. Her analysis includes close readings of the undercurrents and ideologies hidden in legal texts, parliamentary debates, and archives. But she also reminds us that, whether in the US or around the world, these walls literally embody the state. Their imposing physical presence and powerful affective charge transform the lives of all those who dwell in their shadow. In writing that is lucid and compelling throughout, Loiselle brings an engrossing range of interdisciplinary materials to bear on a controversial global phenomenon. Hers is an exciting and imaginative contribution to scholarship on an important issue."—Desmond Manderson, Australian National University "Beautifully written and richly documented, this book challenges the conventional narrative about the US-Mexico border in formative ways. It does so by revisiting the timeline of the authorization to build the border wall, reinterpreting the function of the wall as a marker of national identity, and reinscribing spatiality into the legal analysis of regimes of border control. With immigration high on the agenda in every corner of the world, this book offers a profound guide to exposing injustices hidden in plain sight."—Ayelet Shachar, author of The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Wall Building (a) Nation1. Looking at the Wall through the Law2. Drawing the Contours of the Nation3. The Wall We Need4. The Wall as LawConclusion: Looking Back to the FutureAppendix: A Tour of the US-Mexico BorderlandNotesBibliographyIndex

Marie-Eve Loiselle is a Lecturer at Macquarie Law School.

"Marie-Eve Loiselle embeds the enduring fantasy of a wall between the US and Mexico in a rich inlay of contexts, historical, cultural, and material. Building Walls, Constructing Identities situates recent efforts in a much longer history than is often supposed, and demonstrates how they are expressive of anxieties and performative of identities. Her analysis includes close readings of the undercurrents and ideologies hidden in legal texts, parliamentary debates, and archives. But she also reminds us that, whether in the US or around the world, these walls literally embody the state. Their imposing physical presence and powerful affective charge transform the lives of all those who dwell in their shadow. In writing that is lucid and compelling throughout, Loiselle brings an engrossing range of interdisciplinary materials to bear on a controversial global phenomenon. Hers is an exciting and imaginative contribution to scholarship on an important issue."—Desmond Manderson, Australian National University "Beautifully written and richly documented, this book challenges the conventional narrative about the US-Mexico border in formative ways. It does so by revisiting the timeline of the authorization to build the border wall, reinterpreting the function of the wall as a marker of national identity, and reinscribing spatiality into the legal analysis of regimes of border control. With immigration high on the agenda in every corner of the world, this book offers a profound guide to exposing injustices hidden in plain sight."—Ayelet Shachar, author of The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: A Wall Building (a) Nation1. Looking at the Wall through the Law2. Drawing the Contours of the Nation3. The Wall We Need4. The Wall as LawConclusion: Looking Back to the FutureAppendix: A Tour of the US-Mexico BorderlandNotesBibliographyIndex