Border regimes and temporal sequestration: An autoethnography of waiting

Abstract

Research on the US–Mexico border has been overwhelmingly framed in spatial terms focusing primarily on the movements of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. This current framing and focus obfuscate the United States-Mexico border regime’s temporal dimensions and its impact on communities outside its purported purview. Through autoethnography and my own experiences as a transborder commuter, I develop and propose the concept of temporal sequestration to better understand a pernicious form of border violence that is often omitted in presentist accounts of waiting. Furthermore, I argue that waiting is best understood as a multidimensional practice, one that is relational, learned, and suffused with affect.