Paper Trails

“The rich collection of case studies in Paper Trails reminds us that states have increasingly refined their surveillance techniques. A must-read for anyone interested in how the issuing of the identifications and documents that pervade our everyday lives give states power over the populations—both citizens and immigrants—they govern.” - Leo R. Chavez, author of The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation

“Offering a unique way to think about the materiality of immigrant life and the ways that papers shape migrants' identities, experiences, rights, and sense of belonging, this volume tells a compelling story about the need to center documents in the study of international migration.” - Leisy J. Abrego, coeditor of We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United States

“Documents, or ‘papers,’ both reflect and help construct a global reality of heightened border policing and profound socioeconomic inequality. By powerfully illuminating the work that documents do in producing the state and people of unequal status, and the tactics people employ to contest citizenship-related forms of exclusion, Paper Trails provides valuable tools for those engaged in the struggle to realize a more just world.” - Joseph Nevins, author of Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid

“Paper Trails is a substantial and well-edited collection of research. It is an interesting, theoretically engaging and empirically rich book. It is undoubtedly an important contribution to migration studies and social sciences in general.” - Shahram Khosravi, Ethnic and Racial Studies

“A group of preeminent scholars of immigration have produced a stellar collection of essays. . . . [Paper Trails] is an invaluable addition to our understanding of how the everyday processes of documentation operate in systems of state governance. . . . It deserves a wide readership.” - Susan J. Terrio, Journal of Anthropological Research

“Paper Trails is an important contribution for students and researchers in migration studies, as well as practitioners in the field.” - Sandra King-Savic, Refuge

"This collection will be essential reading for migration scholars, those working in the field of legal geography, and those whose research explores issues of citizenship, identity, border control and multi-level governance." - Emma Patchett, Border Criminologies

"Focusing on paperwork, as the chapters in this volume do, provides fertile ground for examining the relationship between migrants and the state." - Anna Tuckett, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute