ABSTRACT
Focusing on the circulation of people and goods, this chapter approaches bordering as a flexible enterprise that both intercepts and facilitates mobilities. This is particularly well illustrated by the case of the global revolution in customs. To understand how borderwork has recently been transformed and the impact on border officers’ hold on the border, we first need to examine the policy, economic and technological trends that made such changes possible. Accordingly, this chapter traces a series of North American and global shifts that transformed the port of entry as we once knew it. Previously the centre of customs activities, the port has gradually been downgraded to one of many control points spread along securitized supply chains. Offering a genealogy starting much before 9/11, the chapter considers both the security-based and market-based agendas that governed the gradual replacement of a centuries-old taxation frame with one focused on promoting and monitoring the mobilities of freight and people.
