Introduction

Abstract

This chapter situates the book within the discipline of Anthropology, current events, and border theory. In the 2010s, a key national story was the need to secure and control the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, and the most common setting for the story during this time was the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas. Concepts central to the book’s argument are introduced: bordering, rebordering, and debordering; discourse; rhetoric; and the Global North and South. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the book’s contributions during times of increasing racial violence and nationalism.