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Bodies And Borders: Navigating Colonial And Capitalist Desires In Trinidad And Tobago, Hannah Grosberg

Senior Theses and Projects

Colonialism/capitalism1 continue to create and exploit a dehumanised labour population in the pursuit of profit and power. The current formation of such a population is formed through heterosexist, xenophobic and racist ideologies revealed in the discourses and practises surrounding the (mis)treatment of refugees, as well as sex tourism and human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago. The legal backbone of these three modern expressions of colonialism/capitalism in Trinidad and Tobago are the Sexual Offenses Act, the Trafficking in Persons Act, and the Immigration Act. In effect, undocumented migrants, refugees, and sex workers are criminalised, barred access to human rights, and become …

Environmental Refugees? Rethinking What’S In A Name, Elizabeth Keyes

All Faculty Scholarship

The phrase “environmental refugee” summons a compelling image of someone forced to relocate due to climate change. The phrase has been used effectively to raise awareness of such diverse problems as the rising sea levels that are submerging some Pacific islands, as well as the increased impact of natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes which cause a mixture of temporary and permanent migration. As climate change accelerates, and its human costs become ever clearer, it is completely appropriate and necessary to respond to these migrations, and a number of international initiatives are underway to do so.

As these initiatives go …

The Right To Migrate: A Human Rights Response To Immigration Restrictionism In Argentina, David C. Baluarte

Scholarly Articles

Within days of President Donald Trump’s 2017 Executive Orders on border security and immigration enforcement, President Mauricio Macri of Argentina issued a Decree to address what he declared was an urgent problem of immigrant criminality. The timing of the two Presidents’ actions triggered concerns that U.S.-style restrictionist immigration regulation was spreading to South America, a continent that has taken progressive steps towards recognizing the human rights of migrants in recent years. Until Macri’s 2017 Decree, Argentina was considered a leader in this regard, with its 2004 immigration law that boldly codified a “right to migrate” and included robust substantive and …

Borders Rules, Beth A. Simmons

All Faculty Scholarship

International political borders have historically performed one overriding function: the delimitation of a state’s territorial jurisdiction, but today they are sites of intense security scrutiny and law enforcement. Traditionally they were created to secure peace through territorial independence of political units. Today borders face new pressures from heightened human mobility, economic interdependence (legal and illicit), and perceived challenges from a host of nonstate threats. Research has only begun to reveal what some of these changes mean for the governance of interstate borders. The problems surrounding international borders today go well-beyond traditional delineation and delimitation. These problems call for active forms …