ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, the pace of border wall announcements has been steadily increasing. Whether in Asia with the construction by Pakistan of a wall on its Iranian border, in Europe with the strengthening of Russia’s borders with its neighbors, or to alleviate the shortcomings of the Dublin Convention, in South America on Ecuador’s border with Peru, in Africa as with Kenya and Tunisia in the face of rising transnational terrorism, or even in the US, the number of border walls is unprecedented in recent world history. Spaces where walls are erected combine both the modernity of a new norm of globalization and the archaic dimension of a feudal fortification. From this perspective, walls are designed as a rampart against perceived security problems, with no clear evidence of their actual effectiveness. Thus, while their legitimacy lies in the restoration of an ancient order, border walls produce entropy. The resulting tension leads to a crescendo of violence and subjects border areas to centrifugal and centripetal effects, while in the longer term walls offer an illusory and temporary remedy for the faults of globalization.
