This paper addresses the role of borders as structures of power in contemporary political discourse in the USA. In particular, it will focus on how the discourse of security traditionally associated with borders (and specifically the US-Mexico border) has recently merged with other discourses which are not typical of the function of borders. In fact, both the “Trump Wall” and Joe Biden’s current border policy are the foci of recontextualised discourses which are originally conceived as outside the traditional securitization of borders and which ultimately reflect (and shape) different ideological imprints and different ways, through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion, of conceiving the Nation.
Massimiliano Demata (DPhil, Oxon) is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin. He has done research and published extensively on political and media discourse of the UK and the USA, including populism, nationalism, political metaphors, computer-mediated communication, and border discourses. His latest publications include Discourses of Borders and the Nation in the USA. A Discourse-Historical Analysis (Routledge 2022) and (with Virginia Zorzi and Angela Zottola) the edited volume Conspiracy Theory Discourses (John Benjamins, 2022). He was a Fulbright Fellow in 1999 (Yale) and 2014 (Indiana) and has held lectureships, classes and seminars as Visiting Professor in France, Germany, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.
Massimiliano Demata
University of Turin
massimiliano.demata@unito.it