Abstract
In contemporary politics, nature is generally assumed to be a commitment of the political left and restrictionism a commitment of the right. The reality, however, is significantly more complicated: in the United States, environmentalists have argued for immigration restrictions since the movement first began in the last 1800s; many of the so-called fathers of American environmentalism were immigration restrictionists; and the argument continues to attract vocal adherents among mainstream and radical greens.This book seeks to explain these seemingly paradoxical commitments by grounding them in contemporary debates over the relationship between sovereignty and nature. It observes that – amid the ruptures of neoliberal globalization – restrictionist and their opponents seek to reconfigure the relationship between sovereignty and nature toward what they believe to be a sustainable end. Through this analysis, it makes the case that nature is increasingly being deployed as a form of "walling"-enabling restrictionists to subtly reinforce territorial boundaries and identities without having to revert to racial and cultural logics that are unpalatable to the political left. This phenomenon has major implications on the prospect for justice an inclusion in the 21st century; well-intentioned environmentalist efforts to “green sovereignty” are actually serving to reinforce exclusionary forms of political community.It argues that attention to the realities of transnational migration could provide an alternative perspective upon which to construct a very different brand of socio-ecological activism – one that might be our only chance of effectively confronting the powerful forces and structures producing ecological devastation and social injustice.
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