The Politics of Proximity and Distance: The US-Mexico Border-as-Parallax-Object

Abstract

This dissertation examines the role of affect and emotion in contemporary citizenship practices along the US-Mexico border. Drawing from mixed qualitative methods, this dissertation employs inter-subjective research practice to understand the entanglement between the state, objects, citizen, and non-citizen along the border. This study presents two interrelated findings: 1) state security objects "impress" and mediate citizen movements, and 2) a dual masculinity of offensive and defensive emerges around compassionate actions toward or distancing actions from migrants in need of aid or assistance. Drawing on Slavoj Žižek, this dissertation explores the border-as-parallax-object to reveal the ways that the border is inscribed beyond the material fence. In this way, this dissertation connects disparate literature within human geography concerning materiality and psychoanalytic theory. By psychoanalytically reading and coding research interviews, this dissertation also develops the concepts of the face-of-the-state and ambivalent citizenship to elucidate the impact of security objects on citizen practices. The findings build toward a new subfield in political geography: emotional border studies.