Spotting an Empire, or the Aestheticization of Empire along the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

• In Event: 40267 - Towards an Unruly Latinx Sociology

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze a public collection of photographs made available by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to highlight what I call the “aestheticization of empire.” Taken primarily along the U.S. Mexico borderlands and Guantanamo Bay, I use these collections to show how the “border” or the “US border regime” is integral to material and ideological pillars sustaining the U.S. empire across interconnected geopolitical terrains. By “border regime,” I mean the concatenated institutions, groups, discourses, and practices comprising the various aspects of the “border,” “immigration enforcement,” or “border militarization.” Initial findings demonstrate that these collections, titled “CBP Operations at the San Ysidro Port of Entry” and “DOD Support to the Southern Border in Photos,” invoke two themes: state action and amorphous borders. The latter conveys state or imperial action by showing agents working to ensure “national security,” which can mean several things, like protecting racial capitalist interests or protecting white supremacist nationalism by deporting or surveilling racially minoritized people and places. The former conveys the spatial heterogeneity of the U.S. border regime while implying that militarization and surveillance are the only measures to ensure the U.S. empire.

Author

• Miguel Arturo Avalos, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign