Boundaries Of Exclusion Research Articles

Creating ‘safe’ spaces through exclusionary boundaries: Examining employers’ treatment of domestic workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in India

Our study illustrates how boundary mechanisms exacerbated the marginalization of paid domestic workers in India, after they resumed their employment at the end of the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. We draw upon in-depth interviews with the middle-class employers of these workers to show how the employers renegotiated boundary rules and created bubbles of safe interaction for themselves. We contribute to boundary theory by explaining how pre-existing symbolic boundaries intensify and materialize into social boundaries. Social boundaries often result in unequal access to resources, further increasing disparities. But how do these boundaries get invoked? What forms do they take? So far, we do not have enough empirical research examining the creation and maintenance of social boundaries. This study shows how social boundaries get created and stabilized within gated communities through deployment of material resources, regulations and routinization of boundary tactics. These exclusionary social boundaries are further strengthened by the presence of an external agency, emerging as a new and significant actor in the hitherto private employer–worker relationship. Finally, we note that these boundaries result in normalized differential treatment of domestic workers, thus accentuating the class divide.

DeFalco, A. (2023). Curious kin in fictions of posthuman care. Oxford University Press.

The crisis arising from climate change poses imminent threats to marginalised human and nonhuman populations, necessitating a concerted effort to formulate comprehensive solutions. The primary reason for climate change is humans’ rampant exploitation of natural resources through extractivism. The hubris of human exceptionalism allowed humans to continue this attitude of total disregard (Braidotti 2013, Ferrando 2020, Jensen and Auld 2022). In order to understand the flaws of human exceptionalism, it is imperative to comprehend prevailing notions of the human and how they create exclusionary boundaries. Posthumanism helps to realise the full potential of the decentering of the human as the measure of everything (Herbrechter 2013, Ferrando 2013, Ferrando 2020). It is a call for action to radically redefine the monolithic concept of humanism that emerged during the Enlightenment period in Europe (Braidotti 2013, Ferrando 2020).

"In the army I'm no longer typecast as the son of migrant workers": modalities of inclusion and belonging among children of migrant workers in the military in Israel.

This article explores how non-citizen minorities experience military service, focusing on children of international labor migrants who served in the Israel Defense Forces. During the 1990's, Israel witnessed an influx of migrant workers, primarily from the Philippines, Latin America and Africa. However, due to Israeli immigration policies, neither they nor their Israeli-born children were eligible for citizenship. Consequently, upon reaching the age of 18, unlike their Israeli peers, these children were not recruited into the army. Furthermore, they lived under constant threat of deportation. Due to advocacy by civil society organizations, in 2006 and 2010 the government granted civic status (permanent residency) to approximately 1,500 children. This made them eligible for military service, a somewhat unique situation globally. Upon completion of their first year of military service, they were eligible for Israeli citizenship and their immediate family members were eligible for permanent residency. Through qualitative and quantitative research, we examine inclusion and belonging amongst children of migrant workers who served in the military. Our findings suggest that military service enabled them to overcome the exclusionary boundaries they experienced as children in three ways. Firstly, they achieved formal belonging by receiving citizenship. Secondly, they achieved informal belonging through the cultural and social capital this service accrued within Israeli society. Finally, for some, military service deepened their knowledge of Judaism and, in certain cases, led to conversion, thus fostering religious belonging. These three aspects facilitated inclusion and a sense of belonging for these formerly marginalized children while also enhancing their legitimacy within Israeli society. This unique case study contributes to ongoing global debates about the experiences of minority groups in the military.

The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation ed. by Craig R. Koester

Reviewed by: The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation ed. by Craig R. Koester Scott D. Mackie craig r. koester (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Pp. xxi + 525. $150. Composed of thirty essays, this handbook provides an excellent introduction to the most important scholarly trends that have shaped discussion of Revelation in the past twenty to thirty years. The editor, Craig R. Koester, puts the volume on fine footing with his "Introduction to Revelation's Social Setting, Theological Perspective, and Literary Design" (pp. 1–17), which briefly considers a variety of interpretive issues and summarizes the six vision cycles that structure Revelation. He believes divine identity and theodicy are the central questions motivating Revelation; thus, "Who is the Lord of the world?" and "Why would the sovereign God allow injustice to occur?" (p. 11). Literary features are treated in the first section, beginning with Mitchell G. Reddish's "The Genre of the Book of Revelation" (pp. 21–35), which prioritizes apocalypse over prophecy and letter, and "Narrative Features of the Book of Revelation," by James L. Resseguie (pp. 37–52), who characterizes Revelation's "masterplot" as a "quest story of the people of God in search of a new promised land, the new Jerusalem" (p. 48). The evocative imagery of Revelation is unmatched in the NT, and Konrad Huber ("Imagery in the Book of Revelation," pp. 53–67) believes its many verbal pictures, symbols, and metaphors were designed to appeal persuasively to the visual imaginations of its hearers. In "Rhetorical Features of the Book of Revelation" (pp. 69–83), David A. deSilva describes Revelation as an "apocalypse" that "unveils" and interprets "facets of the lived experience of its audiences, 'revealing' the spiritual dimensions" and "'true' nature of … those facets of their situation" (p. 70). Moreover, the rhetoric of Revelation strategically enlists authoritative voices (the Spirit, Jesus, angels, God, and other "supernatural beings" [p. 72]) and appeals to the intellect as well as the emotions (awe, shame, fear, and confidence). The OT also constitutes an important authoritative voice, and Steve Moyise's essay, "The Old Testament in the Book of Revelation" (pp. 85–100), identifies the scriptural symbols and vocabulary with which the author expresses his visionary rhetoric. The section concludes with David L. Mathewson, "Revelation's Use of the Greek Language" (pp. 101–14), and Justin P. Jeffcoat Schedtler, "The Hymns in Revelation" (pp. 115–30). The next section, "Social Setting," begins with Warren Carter, "Revelation and Roman Rule in First-Century Asia Minor" (pp. 133–51); Carter endorses a growing consensus that the biblical author has exaggerated imperial persecution and societal threats in order to heighten resistance to cultural assimilation and accommodation. In response to both real and perceived threats, Mikael Tellbe ("Relationships among Christ-Believers and Jewish Communities in First-Century Asia Minor," pp. 153–67) finds Revelation radically redefining God's people, with Christ-followers solely representing the true people of God. Richard S. Ascough ("Greco-Roman Religions and the Context of the Book of Revelation," pp. 169–83) [End Page 371] similarly thinks that Revelation amplified perceived threats and defined identity in sharp opposition to the "other." All rival religious practice is vilified in the process and characterized as either "feasting or fornication" (p. 170). The same issues are raised in connection with varying (and perhaps competing) forms of early Christian belief and practice, and Paul Trebilco ("John's Apocalypse in Relation to Johannine, Pauline, and Other Forms of Christianity in Asia Minor," pp. 185–201]) again finds Revelation drawing sharp, exclusionary boundaries around the addressed communities, particularly with regard to food offered to idols. The third section, "Theology and Ethics," opens with Martin Karrer, "God in the Book of Revelation" (pp. 205–22). Concerning the "Alpha and Omega" inclusio in 1:8 and 21:6, Karrer interestingly notes, "Since the letters [Α and Ω] were used to form words and numerals," the author implies "that every human thought, every communication, every reflection, and every numeric calculation involves God's presence" (p. 213). Loren L. Johns ("Jesus in the Book of Revelation," pp. 223–39) discusses the author's high christology, evidenced in the numerous titles and roles...

Journalism Metadiscourse on Professional Identity and Verification in UAE

ABSTRACT This paper examines journalistic metadiscourse on verification and professional identity in the UAE. Using in-depth interviews with journalists from various UAE institutions, the study interprets journalism as a culture of practice where journalistic roles and practices are discursively constructed as a “part of a wider framework of meaning” within the parameters and conditions where news are produced and circulated. Drawing on the hierarchy-of-influences model, the paper analyzes the epistemological, institutional and professional factors shaping journalists’ construction of journalism as a field of practice and professional identity. It also examines how journalists in the UAE interpret the notion of verification and apply it in their work, especially in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. The paper argues that journalists’ professional identity in the UAE is marked by an exclusionary boundary discourse legitimizing the social role of journalists within a loyalist press model that is increasingly challenged by a fast changing communicational ecosystem at the regional and global levels.

Lived reality of elite neighbourhoods: geographies of inequality in Delhi

ABSTRACT This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the neighbourhood community centres or RWA clubs to cater to non-elite residents. It also focuses on the narratives of the domestic staff employed in elite households, who too inhabit the public spaces within these neighbourhoods, including parks, streets, and markets. In this way, the paper draws out the class contestations within elite neighbourhoods and explains how these spaces become sites of class fractions and factions as they are marked by the politics of who a ‘real’ elite is. As such, this paper is an account of how class exclusionary boundaries are drawn and subverted by elites and non-elites both in private (gated neighbourhoods) and public spaces (parks, shopping malls), thus bringing attention to the fractured realities of elite neighbourhoods.

More Gamer, Less Girl: Gendered Boundaries, Tokenism, and the Cultural Persistence of Masculine Dominance

Abstract How do exclusionary boundaries persist in consumption subcultures amid increased progress, representation, and inclusion? In video gaming, women have come to represent nearly half of the market; yet, this is a limited indicator of gender-based progress. A culture of masculine dominance persists. Extending previous research on boundary work, the authors employ a cultural perspective of tokenism to examine how gendered boundaries in consumption subcultures persist despite efforts to transform or even eradicate them. This qualitative study draws on interviews with 23 gamers who identify as women (ages 19–29 years), coupled with data from social media platforms, news media, and industry reports. Empirical findings capture the recursive process of maladaptive boundary crossing: how women’s efforts to subvert gendered boundaries at the micro level (e.g., through response enactments) get churned through the structuring tokenistic mechanics of boundary work at the meso level and result in the inadvertent cultural persistence of masculine dominance. The analysis offers a conceptual framework that explains how micro–meso level dynamics perpetuate and conceal inequity in consumption subcultures. Implications address the precarious promise of progress and the cultural legacy of tokenism in the marketplace with particular relevance to broader systems of domination.

Conceptualising the commons as a relational triad: Lessons from the grant of use cooperative housing model in Barcelona

The current crisis of housing affordability in urban environments has drawn the attention of geographers to housing commons. This paper provides a conceptual and operational framework for an empirical study of housing commons. In thinking about the commons as a ‘relational triad’ involving a resource (the object), and community (the actors) and a form of organisation (the activity), I argue that housing commons are hybrid, imperfect social processes that escape binary scrutiny. Drawing on the findings of a research project that took place between 2017 and 2021, I focus on an emerging form of self-managed cooperative housing in the city of Barcelona, known as the ‘grant of use model’. I dwell on the contradictory nature of self-management in the context of a social reproduction crisis. Housing commons can be conducive to solidaristic communities and non-individualist subjectivities outside the financialisation of everyday life via mortgaged homeownership. However, the time and emotional investment required to self-develop housing projects in highly regulated, neoliberal urban spaces are not available for everyone. Housing commons require a favourable political context, economic resources, social connections and technical knowledge, which prevent democratic access. I analyse the origin and causes of exclusionary boundaries surrounding these housing commons to understand how these boundaries can be softened. Departing from disembedded conceptualisations of the commons, I show what type of public-common partnerships and innovative policies can make housing commons more inclusive without renouncing principles such as self-organisation and autonomy.

Ethically (un)bounding camp research: Life histories within and beyond camp boundaries

AbstractThe changing enforcement and porosity of camp boundaries have implications for research in camps and their environs. Camp research is increasingly blurring their locational and categorical boundaries. However, in contexts where camp boundaries are being actively “hardened,” researchers must be attentive to possible effects of research across boundaries for those who are targeted by encampment. Research has an ethical imperative to challenge exclusionary boundaries and categories, recognising the many ways these constructed boundaries are already crossed and contested. It must also conscientiously negotiate and even defer to boundaries in research when participants may otherwise be at risk because of the underlying violence that maintains camps as discrete spatial technologies of power. In conducting life‐history research with Burundian refugees in Tanzania, I chose to “bound” my research with Burundian refugees to within camp boundaries, to reduce the risk to research participants. I argue that although research in camps may risk reifying camp boundaries, it can nevertheless conscientiously reach beyond and challenge camp boundaries through attentive methods. The stories recounted in this research reach far beyond camp boundaries, and include experiences of Burundian border‐crossers seeking liveable lives in diverse places and situations, not always of their own choosing. Life histories thus weave an imperfect, inchoate “minor cartography” of often‐invisibilised, diverse sites of refugee lives, bound up with the changing power and policing of camp boundaries shaping refugees' trajectories in the broader “campscape” over time.

Interrogating the “Animal”: An Investigation into the Ethics of Man-Animal Divide

Humanity defines itself through an animal other, the animal in Jacques Derrida’s definition of “absolute alterity,” cannot return the human gaze. In this paper, I explore the possibilities of accommodation and hospitality which posthuman philosophy provides in conceptualizing the position of alterity of the “animal”. Building on the writing of Jacque Derrida and Giorgio Agamben I will argue how Posthumanism can radicalize the way in which the anthropocentric worldview looks at the animal as other, questioning the positioning and relevance of speciesism and species boundary. Also, the issue of the agency has been interrogated in this research article. I have also argued for a new mode of conceptualizing the “other” / the “animal” which abolishes the hierarchical view of anthropocentric conception of nonhuman but instead views the other from the lens of companionship, borrowing from the ideas of “companionship” and “Chuthulucene” of Donna J. Haraway. The paper is an attempt to expand the humanist exclusionary boundaries and is an exercise in developing a posthuman ethics through which the category of human can be radically questioned and can be made more hospitable.

Unity through disunity: Strengths, values, and tensions in the disciplinary discourse of ecological economics

Ecological economics has existed as a field for over 30 years. The field has since its inception strived to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and incorporates many substantially different perspectives. Despite continuous discussion about the fundamentals and direction of the field, ecological economists maintain a perception that ecological economics is at its core one field, although there are various approaches within it. The present study draws on the concept of disciplinary discourse to explore the field's perceived strengths and the values pursued through its research. I carried out interviews with editors and editorial board members of the journal Ecological Economics in order to investigate how actors in a central location expressed this discourse. Respondents hold that the field's strengths are its theoretical robustness, breadth, and open and dynamic nature. They also hold that the field should pursue the scientific values of consistency, societal relevance, and novelty. However, the operationalization of these values in the institutional and intellectual environment of ecological economics is underscoring tensions within the field, including the question of whether to enforce strict exclusionary boundaries against mainstream economic approaches.

Cash Crops, Print Technologies, and the Politicization of Ethnicity in Africa

What are the origins of the ethnic landscapes in contemporary states? Drawing on a preregistered research design, we test the influence of dual socioeconomic revolutions that spread throughout Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—export agriculture and print technologies. We argue these changes transformed ethnicity via their effects on politicization and boundary-making. Print technologies strengthened imagined communities, leading to more salient—yet porous—ethnic identities. Cash crop endowments increased groups’ mobilizational potential but with more exclusionary boundaries to control agricultural rents. Using historical data on cash crops and African language publications, we find that groups exposed to these historical forces are more likely to be politically relevant in the postindependence period, and their members report more salient ethnic identities. We observe heterogenous effects on boundary-making as measured by interethnic marriage; relative to cash crops, printing fostered greater openness to assimilate linguistically related outsiders. Our findings illuminate not only the historical sources of ethnic politicization but also mechanisms shaping boundary formation.

America First populism, social volatility, and self-reported arrests

Despite research on the causes of populism and on the narratives of populist leaders, there is little empirical work on the relationship between populist attitudes and behavior, notably including criminal behavior. Our overarching concern is the recurrent social volatility of metaphorical populist themes that are central to impactful political messaging. Drawing on a national United States survey conducted around the 2016 election, we use multilevel models to show that the politically charged exclusionary boundaries of "America First" populism are behaviorally connected to increased odds of having been arrested. We argue that the rapid redrawing of social boundaries that make up populist attitudes is closely connected with the effects of economic and political frustrations during times of rapid social change. In the process, we develop a behavioral analysis of the social volatility of the recurrent populist movement in America.

The Great Secession: Ethno-National Rebirth and the Politics of Turkish–German Belonging

Germany is facing a contemporary mainstreaming of the far right, which has a long tradition of wanting “Turks out!” Turkish immigrants have been the main strangers in Germany following the guest-worker treaty signed in 1961, physically close as friends, yet culturally distant as foes. From September 2015 onwards, German–Turkish politics of belonging, the Turkish issue, underwent a contentious period resulting in secessions between German and Turkish authorities in September 2017. Against this background, this article asks: How did mainstream political actors in Germany emplot the Turkish issue while a far-right challenger party sought to establish a far-right narrative of ethno-national rebirth? The temporal unfolding of the Turkish issue is explored by drawing on media analysis (n = 1120), interpretive process-tracing and narrative genre analysis of claims raised by political actors in German and Turkish newspapers. In order to visualize how the Turkish issue evolved between 2000 and 2017 in media discourse, 546 articles in the mainstream quality newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung were collected. The Great Secession period between 2015 and 2017 was selected for an in-depth case study. To conduct interpretive process-tracing and narrative genre analysis of this case, another 574 articles in the German Süddeutsche Zeitung and Turkish Hürriyet were analysed. In so doing, this article contributes to (1) the study of belonging and identity by adopting a novel approach to boundary studies, combining narrative genre analysis with Habermas’ communicative action theory, and (2) the study of political strategies of adapting, ignoring or demarcating far-right contenders by, again, introducing a narrative approach to political communication and mobilization processes. The analysis shows that, in the first stage of the Great Secession period, inclusionary and exclusionary boundaries competed, while in later stages inclusionary boundaries were cast aside by exclusionary boundaries after reputable mainstream party-political actors adopted and thus legitimized far-right story elements.

Islamophobia, Science and the Advocacy Concept

This article fully recognises the reality and detrimental impact of anti-Muslim sentiment and consequently that 'Islamophobia' describes an important social reality, especially in contexts where Muslims are a minority. However it is critical of ‘Islamophobia’ as a valid concept in the social science. In the sociology of Islam, it actually distorts research by concentrating on Muslims as invariably victims of social forces. This article is a modest proposal to reconsider differences between science and advocacy concepts, thereby recognising their different and distinctive roles in social movements and academic institutions. It is important that those undertaking any scholarly study of detrimental social behaviour motivated by hatred possess valid theoretical and empirical tools to counter false information or distorted views of minorities. To this extent, Islamophobia is a valuable advocacy concept in the public sphere and scholars should aim to keep it there. However, the article explores the history and deployment of Islamophobia as an advocacy concept and exposes its limitations as scientific description of social reality. There are two contrasted conclusions to this critique. The pessimistic view is that all human societies are constructed around social groups that have exclusionary boundaries. Although boundaries are always changing, the inclusion/exclusion dynamic never wholly disappears. Policy efforts enhance cosmopolitan virtues. The optimistic conclusion is that advocacy concepts and scientific practices, while not entirely compatible, are not systematically opposed. Advocacy may have greater effect when it is grounded in reliable facts and tested assumptions. Defending science and critical debate are important in a political climate of ‘fake news’ feeding off negative stereotypes, hate speech and incivility.

Heine's Displaced Philology

Heine's critical use of stock Romantic metaphors and images critically engages with the normative claims that inform the construction of the German literary canon. This essay explores his play with the metaphorical complex of organicism, uncovering his critique of the hermeneutic tradition of philology as a national project. Heine's metaphorics reread philology's obsession with singular origin and exclusionary boundaries of national literatures as a silencing and exclusion of its most creative voices. This “displaced philology” rejects the imperative of naturalization and homogenous constructions of language and culture as it returns the displaced to a position up front and in the center of a poetics that exposes the normative regime of the literary canon, and it rereads its linguistic politics to recover the creativity of the displaced.

A struggle on two fronts: boundary drawing in the lower region of the social space and the symbolic market for 'down-to-earthness'.

In this article we use qualitative interviews to examine how Norwegians possessing low volumes of cultural and economic capital demarcate themselves symbolically from the lifestyles of those above and below them in social space. In downward boundary drawing, a range of types of people are regarded as inferior because of perceived moral and aesthetic deficiencies. In upward boundary drawing, anti-elitist sentiments are strong: people practising resource-demanding lifestyles are viewed as harbouring 'snobbish' and 'elitist' attitudes. However, our analysis suggests that contemporary forms of anti-elitism are far from absolute, as symbolic expressions of privilege are markedly less challenged if they are parcelled in a 'down-to-earth' attitude. Previous studies have shown attempts by the privileged to downplay differences in cross-class encounters, accompanied by displays of openness and down-to-earthness. Our findings suggest that there is infact a symbolic 'market' for such performances in the lower region of social space. This cross-class sympathy, we argue, helps naturalize, and thereby legitimize, class inequalities. The implications of this finding are outlined with reference to current scholarly debates about politics and populism, status and recognition and intersections between class and gender in the structuring of social inequalities. The article also contributes key methodological insights into the mapping of symbolic boundaries. Challenging Lamont's influential framework, we demonstrate that there is a need for a more complex analytical strategy rather than simply measuring the 'relative salience' of various boundaries in terms of their occurrence in qualitative interview data. In distinguishing analytically between usurpationary and exclusionary boundary strategies, we show that moral boundaries in particular can take on qualitatively different forms and that subtypes of boundaries are sometimes so tightly intertwined that separating them to measure their relative salience would neglect the complex ways in which they combine to engender both aversion to and sympathies for others.

Moving the lab into the field: The making of pathologized (non)citizens in US science education

ABSTRACTThis article examines how notions of health and citizenship have become entangled in US science education reforms targeting particular populations. Current science education policy assumes that marginalized groups have been historically ignored, and that new research is required to “make diversity visible” in order to adapt instruction for those students. This article questions that premise, asking instead how key practices of US science education emerged in response to the fabricated presence of racialized (non)citizens. Interweaving lines of inquiry from cultural studies and science & technology studies, I analyse a set of pedagogies that circulated across US science education, public health, and colonial projects in the early twentieth century. I explore how this pedagogical apparatus doubled as a strategy of governance, rendering citizenship into a biomedical status that had to be proven rather than assumed. Finally, I raise questions about recent reforms that hope to leverage public health concerns (e.g. obesity) to make science instruction more inclusive and culturally responsive. A danger is that efforts to respond to the needs of “diverse groups” may inadvertently reinscribe diversity as pathology. This can occur when reforms continue to rely on educational practices that mark exclusionary boundaries of biomedical citizenship.

US immigration policies and citizenship on the screen

Abstract: Always a controversial issue, the US ‘immigration problem’ expresses anxieties over the nation’s changing ethnic demographics, leading to the creation of exclusionary boundaries that are manifested in media prejudices and immigration rhetoric, controversial enforcement policies and questions about citizenship. Gregory Nava’s Bordertown, Sergio Arau’s A Day Without a Mexican, and Nickleodeon’s Dora the Explorer critically address the immigration issue using an outlaw discourse that seeks to challenge the effects of a pervasive ideological anti-immigration rhetoric threatening to destroy an old national ethos. Resumen: El ‘problema de la inmigración’ en Estados Unidos refl eja miedos en torno a la cambiante demografía étnica de la nación que han llevado a la creación de líneas divisorias excluyentes, puestas de manifi esto en prejuicios y una retórica de la inmigración en los medios, en políticas controvertidas y en cuestiones relativas a la ciudadanía. Ciudad del Silencio, de Gregory Nava; Un día sin mexicanos, de Sergio Arau, y Dora la Exploradora examinan el tema de la inmigración, desafi ando con su discurso ‘outlaw’ los efectos de una retórica ideológica anti-inmigrante que amenaza con destruir uno de los valores de la nación.

In vivo confinement promotes collective migration of neural crest cells.

Collective cell migration is fundamental throughout development and in many diseases. Spatial confinement using micropatterns has been shown to promote collective cell migration in vitro, but its effect in vivo remains unclear. Combining computational and experimental approaches, we show that the in vivo collective migration of neural crest cells (NCCs) depends on such confinement. We demonstrate that confinement may be imposed by the spatiotemporal distribution of a nonpermissive substrate provided by versican, an extracellular matrix molecule previously proposed to have contrasting roles: barrier or promoter of NCC migration. We resolve the controversy by demonstrating that versican works as an inhibitor of NCC migration and also acts as a guiding cue by forming exclusionary boundaries. Our model predicts an optimal number of cells in a given confinement width to allow for directional migration. This optimum coincides with the width of neural crest migratory streams analyzed across different species, proposing an explanation for the highly conserved nature of NCC streams during development.