Borders and 'Belongers': Transnational Identities, Border Security, and Cross-Border Socio-Economic Integration in the United States Borderlands with Canada and the British Virgin Islands

Abstract

This paper comparatively analyzes processes of contemporary borderlands identity formation in the context of reinforced security and socio-economic integration in the cross-border regions of the Pacific Northwest and the Virgin Islands. Interviews and surveys of stakeholders reveal how narratives of belonging enable the articulation of a pluralist borderlands identity even in the context of re-aligned border security and socio-economic cross-border integration. The asymmetry in the relationships between the United States and its neighbors — Canada and the Virgin Islands — is as integral to security and integration as to expressions of borderlands identity. While notions of belonging in these cross-border regions remain in transition, expressions of localism are already creating a baseline for a pluralist version of transnational identity formation and culture. A tentative official movement beyond dominant notions of US security, as focused on its borders with Mexico and Canada, toward more flexible conceptualizations of perimeter security that have characterized the Virgin Islands, may also assist in the formation of such 'new regionalisms' and transnational borderlands identities.