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We're seeing a world where borders really start very far away from the intended destinations, but at the behest of these former colonizers, these imperial entities, these people with a lot of money—who have that money because they impoverish the people who are coming to ask for refuge, to ask for reprieve at their borders.

Heba Gowayed discusses her In These Times article, "Borders and the Exchange of Humans for Debt: Borders and debt are new instruments of violence in a system that has had many names." Heba is an Associate Professor of Sociology at CUNY Hunter College. She is author of, Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential.

"The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.

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Guest

Heba Gowayed

@hebagowayed

Heba Gowayed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at CUNY Hunter College. Her work centers the lives of people who migrate across borders and the unequal and often violent institutions they face. She is author of Refuge, published with Princeton University Press, and is working on her second project, The Cost of Borders, where she argues that borders, rather than moral markers of sovereign land, are better understood as a series of expensive— and often deadly — transactions. She is published in academic journals as well as in Slate, Al Jazeera English, The New Humanitarian, and Teen Vogue, and has had her work featured in various outlets including her favorite podcast Code Switch.

Wealthy States Outsource Their Borders to Poorer, Indebted States / Heba Gowayed

Heba Gowayed