The Double Articulation of Sovereign Bordering

Spaces of Exception, Sovereign Vulnerability, and Agamben’s Schmitt/Foucault Synthesis

Bibliographic Data

ID12144578
AuthorsMichael P A Murphy (0000-0002-9523-4402, University of Ottawa, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume36
Issue4
Pages599-615
Publication date2019-10-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Borderlands Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0886-5655 • E-ISSN: 2159-1229
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08865655.2019.1683053
OpenAlexW2981529766
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited66

With the rise of authoritarian populism and critical border studies, as well as the continued presence of the Minutemen and borderlands studies, it is safe to say that sovereign borders are receiving increasing attention from a diverse set of actors within and beyond academia. One strain of research, building on the work of Giorgio Agamben, has examined the border as a space of exception. However, Agamben’s conceptual development of biopolitical sovereignty has come under fire, as critics assert his uneasy synthesis of Carl Schmitt and Michel Foucault is disproven by the agency of migrants proving themselves capable of resisting sovereign control at the border. This article responds to Agamben’s critics by rebalancing the Schmittian and Foucauldian sources of Agamben’s work. While much of the conceptual development of the border-as-exception has focused on the experience of the border-crosser as a capillary manifestation of control, I argue that the exception is as important for the sovereign as for the object of sovereign power. Every decision on the exception is also a process of defining who the sovereign is, and if we understand the border is a space of exception, then we also must recognize the vulnerability that this produces for the sovereign

Agency (philosophy · Articulation (sociology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · Sovereign state · Sovereignty · State of exception · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Political Theology and Sovereignty