You Can Make it Here!: Producing Europe's Mobile Borders in the New Gambia
2022, Political Geography
In an analysis of the International Organization for Migration's projects in The Gambia, I argue that emerging European Union border policies are dramatically reshaping the geopolitical landscape in post-colonial West Africa. Policy and funding tools, such as the EU-IOM Joint Initiative on Migration and the EU Trust Fund for Africa, incentivize West African governments to simultaneously encourage migration for remittance economies, and criminalize it to receive capacity-building funding from these policy/funding tools.
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Such contradictory migration management policies ultimately perpetuate a vicious cycle of migration, capture and return for young Gambians in search of work and education opportunities abroad.
Smuggling and Sovereignty
2020, Geopolitics
In a "state-of the discipline" review, I analyze recent books written by Gregory Feldman and Timothy Baird on the state of smuggling enforcement in Europe's Mediterranean Borderlands. Focusing on policing in relationship to traffickers, I argue that a specific "business model" is emerging, where both sides find they have something to gain from the continued flow of undocumented migrants across international borders.
Farmers Markets as Nodes for Products and Community
2015, The Geographic Bulletin
Co-author: Matthew Fry
As suburban sprawl spreads throughout Texas' Golden Triangle region (Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San-Antonio and Houston), more and more communities begin to look and feel the same. Middle-class consumers, seeking modes of consumption that are rooted in community and place, are turning to farmers' markets as ways to connect with neighbors and local food producers. In a mixed methods analysis of three farmers' markets in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area, I demonstrate how these nodes emerge through the circulation of people, products, and ideas about place.