Paper short abstract:

Using current highly contested representations of the US/Mexico border landscapes and humanscapes, this paper develops the concept of moral geography, exploring the cultural means by which moral valence is attributed to such terrains, and the political consequences of acts of symbolic politics.

Paper long abstract:

Using the contemporary, highly contested representations of the US/Mexico border landscapes and 'humanscapes,' this paper develops the theoretical concept of moral geography, exploring the cultural means by which moral valence is attributed to such terrains and the political consequences of these acts of symbolic politics. The paper draws on the sociological concept of moral entrepreneur, enriching it through an anthropological attention to landscape, material culture, and performance. Ethnographically, the paper is based on several years of fieldwork among a variety of often opposing constituencies, such as undocumented migrants, park rangers and border patrol, vigilantes, faith-based immigrant-aid groups, and religious pilgrims. All these groups move through, depict (visually and discursively), and in other ways contribute to rival cultural constructions of the meaning and moral complexion of this fraught region. While the case is perhaps unusual in its extremity, the cultural processes under investigation are certainly of comparative relevance.