Journal of Identity and Migration Studies (Nov 2018)
Reece Jones, Violent Borders. Refugees and the Right to Move, London: Verso, 2017, ISBN 978-1-78478-474-4, 212 pages
Abstract
The literature on refugees’ experiences has been enriched in recent years as we witnessed a refugees’ crisis that has not been seen since WWII. Only the Syrian civil war displaced more than five million civilians, while, according to an UNCHR report published in June 2018, wars, violence and persecution uprooted a record number of 16.2 million people across the world in 2017. The book briefly reviewed here, Violent Borders. Refugees and the Right to Move, investigates the tumultuous times we live in, ones in which millions of people leave their homes in search of better opportunities, exposing themselves to dangers, encountering violence to the borders and new walls rising in their way. The author argues that building walls and securing borders does not stop migration, but makes it more dangerous: “…borders continue to kill. Even with the massive amount of attention paid to the issue and the vast funds expended to stop migration, people continue to move in 2016 and the year shattered the record of the number of border deaths, with over 7800 people losing their lives simply trying to go from one place to another”.
