Tracing the political life of science in the environmental planning process for border wall construction in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas

Keywords: settler colonial state; science and technology studies; U.S.-Mexico border wall; environmental planning; politics of knowledge
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The U.S.-Mexico border is a biodiverse landscape continually threatened by the presence of the international border wall. In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security waived all environmental regulations and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to build hundreds of miles of border wall. These waivers remain today despite changes in the congressional landscape and ongoing border wall construction. Yet, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency responsible for building the border wall, claim they follow the NEPA process and conduct rigorous environmental planning standards. This is especially relevant in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas – a region constantly under state occupation from the border wall. Given this, I ask: what knowledge claims does CBP make about the borderlands environment and how are these claims incorporated into the border wall planning process? In weaving together theories on the settler colonial state and science and technology studies, I trace the political life of the knowledge produced about the environment in the border wall planning process. Through participant observation and document analysis of border wall planning meetings, I identify how knowledge about the environment is produced and packaged in a way that naturalizes the harm, dispossession, and premature migrant death from the border wall. I argue that these narratives become entangled in claims to scientific expertise, reinforcing the existence of the border wall. Ultimately, the way the environment is understood becomes a powerful tool for informing and legitimating settler state practice and policy in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.