Amnesty Book Club - Border and Rule by Harsha Walia

Borders get talked about like the weather: just there, sometimes stormy, nobody's fault. Harsha Walia's Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism says otherwise. Our next book club meets to argue about it with her, and with each other, in Gongguan.

Four questions on the table

The night follows these four prompts:

1. How do today's border policies grow out of violent territorial expansion, settler colonialism, enslavement and gendered racial ideology?

2. How do immigration diplomacy and externalized borders keep colonial power running today?

3. How does temporary labour migration, here in Taiwan and elsewhere, regulate citizenship, control workers and create precarity?

4. How is racial violence fueling deadly nationalism while leaving millions stateless?

What you're reading

Walia challenges the whole "migrant crisis" story. She shows borders working as tools of labour control, capital accumulation and imperial power. Those borders drive displacement, detention, deportation and death while passing as normal. She connects regions around the world and shows how border regimes split working-class solidarity. She argues that reforming policy isn't enough. Her book ends by imagining international solidarity and the freedom to move, or to stay.

We'll get into what that means for migrant workers, statelessness and rising nationalism, and what it would actually take to challenge the systems behind them.

Grab it here: Border and Rule on Haymarket Books

Tuesday night, upstairs in Gongguan

How we do book club

Amnesty Book Club reads human rights stories from around the world. Then we take them somewhere. Expect guided conversation, people learning from each other, local activists in the mix, and support for anyone who wants to do something with what they've read. Reading broadens the world, and action improves it.

We want this to be a thoughtful, respectful room, so please read our community guidelines before you come.

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