“The Cybernetic Border is an in-depth and long-overdue interrogation of the complicated history and brutal impacts of America’s evolving technological war against migrants. Iván Chaar López’s book is a must-read for scholars of migration, science and technology studies, and American history that examines the increasingly blurred line between science fiction and reality along the US-Mexico border while giving us a frightening look into the future of global boundary enforcement.” - Jason De León, author of Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling
“In this important book, Iván Chaar López reveals how surveillance drones, data infrastructures, and other technologies have been employed to transform the US-Mexico border into a cybernetic weapon against racialized intruders. It is a must-read for anyone interested in how technology and data networks are being developed as systems of surveillance and control, especially against racialized communities. Readers will also be interested in the ways in which Chaar López illuminates the courageous efforts of activists and artists who deploy aesthetic dissent to challenge the technopolitical regime governing the southern border.” - Juan De Lara, author of Inland Shift: Race, Space, and Capital in Southern California
"The Cybernetic Border is a fantastic work of scholarship that can hopefully draw more borderlands scholars into the world of STS and inspire more STS scholars to engage with the (techno-)politics of borders." - Salem Elzway, Technology and Culture
"As data sharing and surveillance get further embedded in daily operations of both law enforcement agencies and the public, The Cybernetic Border offers a vital history against narratives of neutral and improving technology. . . . While focused on drones and the US-Mexico borderlands, this book is valuable and complementary to all work invested in exposing the sociotechnical arrangements through which government, military, industry, and academic partnerships dictate who and what belongs." - Maggie Woodruff, H-Environment, H-Net Reviews
"While we often think of technology as transcending or challenging physical borders, The Cybernetic Border is a case study in their reinforcement. Chaar Lopez draws on a wealth of archival data to trace the history of the U.S. government’s use of border control technologies—including drones, smart walls, artificial intelligence, and biometric technologies, and other data networks—along the U.S.-Mexico border, creating the idea of a racialized enemy to further develop surveillance data networks." - Media Well
"The Cybernetic Border will be helpful for anyone thinking through borderlands, border technologies, and the use of racialized logic to create and sustain borders and border enforcement. . . . One highlight of this text is the focus on smart border and border technologies as a way to divert blame for the deaths of border crossers. It showcases Iván Chaar López’s ability to think through border technology and link it to racialized violence." - Julie Terebkov, Surveillance & Society
"The Cybernetic Border is a product of meticulous archival research and it presents innovative insights about the historical origins of the current US technopolitical border regime and its drones. The book skillfully advances a critical race perspective on borders by emphasizing their racist origins and effects. It is a well-written, engaging and important book." - Özgün Erdener Topak, International Migration
"This book is wonderfully interdisciplinary, thoughtfully drawing in scholarship from Latin American studies, science and technology studies, platform studies, American studies, Black studies, media studies, and more. Chaar López expertly mixes these conversations and, despite the breadth of thinkers, never shortchanges their ideas or his engagements. . . . Ultimately, Chaar López’s book sets the stage for continued examination of the entanglements of race, enmity, borders, and technology." - Lisa Messeri, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies
"Chaar López offers a history of the technologies at the US-Mexican border that not simply traces changes and continuities, but that exposes how the historical stories told about border technology linger as harmful mirages, (ab)used to justify the lethal hardware and software deployed at the border today. . . . The Cybernetic Border is an exemplary project of disentangling border technologies from the language of progress and techno-solutionism." - Philipp Seuferling, Public Books
"The technoaesthetics of dissent is one of several important new analytics offered by the book The Cybernetic Border. These peel back the material reality of the technologies contributing to US-Mexico border politics and policing, showcasing the border itself as a technology." - Kalindi Vora, Public Books
"The Cybernetic Border helps us track the arcs of sovereignty, enmity, and how they are mediated by race and technology: a critical task when the state itself provides resources for, reinforces, and iterates these visions." - Lilly Irani, Public Books
"The Cybernetic Border is an exceptional work of historical and cultural analysis of the socio-technological and legal-political developments that have led to this moment in the 'war' against immigrants." - Michelle Pfeifer, Catalyst
