Of "Old Ways" and "New Ways": Generational Tensions in Border Policing

• In Event: Police, Borders, and Immigrants

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with Canadian border officers, this paper investigates intergenerationality in border policing. By labeling their practices as "old ways" and "new ways", officers categorize know how, skills, training, regulatory knowledge, professional attitudes and work methods according to distinct value scales from which they determine what constitutes a job well done; these scales correspond to generational approaches to borderwork. This paper tells the story of the marginalization of tax collection and ambassadorial understandings of borderwork and of the downward social mobility within the security field of those senior officers associated with these roles. It also sheds light on the promulgation of new internal categorizations of recognition and esteem—favoring academic credentials over work experience and insisting on officers' capacity to coordinate technological aptitudes with interviewing skills—and of the everyday consequences of these organizational transformations upon border officers' work routines, relations with colleagues and promotional prospects. These struggles shed light on the challenges presented by the transition of Canadian border policing to an enforcement and security logic for frontline security professionals. Consequently, this paper contributes to a fine-grained understanding of the structural dynamics shaping contemporary border policing in North America.

Author

• Karine Cote-Boucher, University of Montreal