Conclusion

Not too far from where I live, but very far from an international land border, Kiawah Island, South Carolina, is part of our bordered world. Kiawah just happens to be my most recent encounter with bordering in everyday life, and at the risk of trivializing the significant trends explored in this edited volume, I open with this anecdote to illustrate one modern face of bordering. A barrier island near Charleston, Kiawah’s beautiful beaches and world class golf courses attract a particular class of privileged residents and visitors: mostly white, arriving at the airport and shuttled by van or private car to the island, and capable of living on the self-contained enclave for weeks or more oblivious to the cares of the outside. I went with some friends to find a beach, not knowing that Kiawah, which prides itself on having hosted the 2012 Professional Golf Association Championship and being listed on any number of “best beach” rankings, does not throw open its gates and lay out the welcome mat for just any itinerant beach comber or nature lover. Cars are routed through two lanes of entering traffic, one for residents and one for visitors, and both lanes are strictly controlled by a private security force. After visually assessing the occupants of the car, the “officer” asks your destination and whether you have registered to visit the island—to these authorities the practical equivalent a passport. A reply of “no” quickly earns you a request to turn around and head to the public beaches elsewhere. We asked if it would be possible to visit one of the hotels for lunch, which earned us a yellow permit, a short-term visa on the exclusive island. “Half mile ahead on the right, please,” the security officer told us, and we proceeded believing erroneously that we had gained unfettered access to Kiawah. Our yellow permit, however, had marked us as visitors worthy of little else but suspicion, and it kept us from passing subsequent border crossings set up on the island. No interaction with the state occurred during our brief visit, but it had the trappings of a border encounter even if the stakes of this particular encounter were exceedingly low.