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NO201/GG201, North American Transborder Regions
Wilfrid Laurier University, Fall 2014
Instructor: Dr. Debra Nash-Chambers
Class: Tuesday and Thursday,
11:30 am - 12:50 pm
Room: Bricker Academic (BA)
BA208
Email: [email protected]
Office Hours: 4-5 pm Wed.
2-4 pm Thurs.
DAWB 4-127
Course Calendar Description:
This course will present an overview of key transborder regions within the larger North
American region. The course will consider the physical, socio-economic and political
geography of specific regions on the Canada-U.S and U.S.-Mexico borders.
WLU Notices:
Wilfrid Laurier University uses software that can check for plagiarism. Students may be required to
submit their written work in electronic form and have it checked for plagiarism.
Students with disabilities or special needs are advised to contact Laurier's Accessible Learning Office
for information regarding its services and resources. Students are encouraged to review the Calendar for
information regarding all services available on campus.
North American Studies follows the Political Science Department’s policy on deferred midterm and final
examinations which can be found at http://www.wlu.ca/arts/politicalscience
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Course Policies:
1) Late papers will receive a penalty of 2% per day, unless a doctor’s certificate for
the student, an obituary for a deceased family member can be provided, or, an
extension is negotiated with the instructor via [email protected] in
advance of the due date.
2) All written course assignments must contain footnoting or end noting or they will
be considered plagiarized work. (See WLU notices.)
3) Assignments must use Chicago style for footnoting or end noting style and the
mandatory bibliography for each written assignment.
4) All course assignments must be completed and submitted to the instructor by the
last day of classes to be graded.
5) All papers must be submitted via the assignment drop boxes on the course
website.
Text/Required Readings:
A custom course pack is available from the Fed Ex store at 170 University
Avenue, West in Waterloo. It contains academic articles and chapters of books
complied for weekly assigned readings in stead of text books. Supplementary
readings will be available through the online library reserve for this course. They
will consist of non mandatory readings to supplement the course pack and, like
the readings in the course pack, they can be used as research sources for any
assignment.
Grading Format:
Participation and Attendance:
15% (weekly attendance; participation in
group work, class discussions, and the
Kairos Blanket Exercise)
Assignment #1:
15% - State border assignment.
(Due 9/10/14)
Assignment #2:
20% - Migration assignment.
(Due 30/10/14)
Group Project:
25% - 10 % class presentation; 15% written
submission; (due in week 11 or 12)
Final Examination:
25% (date TBA)
/100%
Course Assignments:
Assignment #1 – Assignment is due in the course online drop box by 11:59 pm
on Thursday October 9th.
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Geography versus Public Policy in the Borderlands – 3-4 pages or 750 –
1,000 words (not including any end notes and the bibliography)
Choose an American borderland state and assess whether physical geography
or public policy (treaties/ international agreements) was more significant in the
location of the boundary between the U.S. and its neighbouring nation. Or, were
both important? Describe the physical geography of the border area of the
American state you have selected. Identify the political entity across the state
border (the Mexican state or a Canadian province or territory), identify the
borderland region in question, and note any important treaty or international
boundary commission that defined the current international boundary in your
assessment. Any map included with the assignment should be added as an
appendix following the bibliography and its source should be properly cited in a
caption. Course readings may be used as research sources. Avoid Wikipedia
as it is not an accredited academic source.
Note: The assignment should be double spaced and in size 12 font with
approximately 1” margins on top and bottom, and 1.25” to 1.5” margins on left
and right sides. Chicago Style footnoting/end noting is required. Samples of
Chicago style are available on the course website. The assignment requires a
bibliography and sources must be properly credited. Late papers will have a 2%
per day penalty. All papers must be submitted via the course online drop box so
the papers can go through Turnitin.ca. Every assignment needs a cover page
identifying the student by name and ID number, the course number and name,
the instructor, and the assignment. Each page of the assignment should be
numbered starting after the cover page, including the bibliography which comes
last. These requirements apply to assignment #2 and the written group
submissions.
Assignment #2 – Due in the course online drop box by 11:59 pm on Thursday
October 30th.
Migration in the Borderlands - 5-6 pages or 1,200 – 1,500 words (not including
any end notes or the bibliography)
Choose an immigrant or migrant group in the borderland region of your choice on
either side of an international North American border. Outline the migration
patterns of the group into the area. Assess their importance to the cultural and
economic development of the area from the late 19th Century and the
implications of the group’s racial or ethnic identity. How did public policy such as
immigration policy or immigration trends or migration patterns determine the
group’s presence in the identified borderland area? Remember that all non
indigenous groups are immigrant or migrant groups at some point in their history.
Did the arrival of your chosen group impact the quality of life of the indigenous
population? Canadian immigrants into the USA, American immigrants into
Canada, and Mexican immigrants into the USA can be used in the assignment.
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Other suggested groups: Scandinavian immigrant groups, Asian immigrant
groups, British Immigrant groups or the Irish and European groups such as the
French, German, or Italian immigrants. Use government statistics or immigration
figures from secondary sources and reliable websites to support your
conclusions. Some suggested sources will be posted online on the course
website. As in Assignment #1, course readings may be used as research
sources. Avoid Wikipedia as it is not an accredited academic source.
Group Project: (Presentations and papers due in weeks 11 & 12 according
to the topic.)
10 minute in-class slide presentation (power point, Prezi etc.) and oral
commentary – 10 %
6-8 page group report due in online course drop box by 11:59 pm on the
day after the in-class presentation.
Students will sign-up for one of the following topics in the first class. Time will be
allotted in class for group meetings. Out-of-class group work will be required and
the group will set the time and place. Groups are encouraged to communicate via
email or facebook to facilitate the project.
Topics:
1) Marc Emery, Public Policy, and the Marijuana Debate in the Cascadia Region.
2) Climate Change and Sovereignty in the Arctic Borderlands.
3) Pollution, Public Policy, and the Great Lakes Borderlands.
4) International Water Disputes in the Great Plains Borderland.
5) Post -9/11 National Security in the Mexican-American Borderlands.
6) Prohibition to Drug Cartels: American Access to Illegal Substances in the
Mexican Borderlands.
7) The Cross-Border Enbridge Pipeline and International Controversy.
8) Illegal Minors and the Crisis in American Immigration Policy.
Class Schedule:
The readings for each week will be posted online on the course website in
MyLearningSpace. They are also available in the course syllabus online.
Part One – Geography, Public Policy and Borders
Week One –
Thursday September 4th - Introduction and Sign-ups for Group Assignment
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Thursday September 4th - What’s geography got to do with it? / Class time for
Group Assignments.
Reading:
Jarod Orsi. “Construction and Contestation: Toward a Unifying Methodology for
Borderlands History”, History Compass, 12/5 (2014): 433-443.
Week Two Tuesday September 9th - Canadian First Nations and Borders
Reading:
Beth LaDow, “Chapter One: Drawing the Line”, The Medicine Line, Life and Death on a North
American Borderland. New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 1- 22.
Thursday September 11th – Native Americans and Borders
Reading:
Daniel D. Arreola. “Chiricahua Apache Homeland in the Borderland Southwest”, The
Geographical Review, 102 (1) January 2012: 111-131.
Week Three Tuesday September 16th – The Mexican-American Borderlands – Movie:
Geronimo: An American Legend [Dir. Walter Hill, Columbia Pictures, 1993]
Reading:
“Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo” in Oscar J. Martínez, Editor, U.S.- Mexico Borderlands, Historical
and Contemporary Perspectives, Jaguar Books on Latin America, Number 1. Lanham, MD: SR
Books, 2006, pp. 20-37.
Thursday September 18th – Movie: Geronimo: An American Legend [Dir. Walter
Hill, Columbia Pictures, 1993]; Class Discussion: The importance of physical
geography in understanding Native economies and culture in the borderlands.
Week Four –
Tuesday September 23rd – Public Policy and Creating Borders
Reading:
“Gadsden Treaty” in Oscar J. Martínez, Editor, U.S. - Mexico Borderlands, Historical and
Contemporary Perspectives, Jaguar Books on Latin America, Number 1. Lanham, MD: SR
Books, 2006, pp. 38- 43.
Thursday September 25th – Geography and Northern Borderlands – Great Lakes
and the Great Plains
Reading:
Randy William Widdis. ‘“Across the Boundary in a Hundred Torrents”: The Changing Geography
of Marine Trade Within the Great Lakes Borderland Region During the Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Century’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(2) 2011, pp. 356379.
Week Five –
Tuesday September 30th - Geography and Northern Borderlands – Cascadia;
Class time for Group Projects
Reading:
Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. “Cascadia in Comparative Perspectives: Canada-U.S. Relations and the
Emergence of Cross-Border Regions”, Canadian Political Science Review, Vol. 2(2) June 2008,
pp. 104-124.
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Thursday October 2nd - Geography and the Southern Borderlands – The
Mexican-American Regions
Reading:
James R. Wilson and Cotton Mather. (1990) “Photo Essay: The Rio Grande Borderland”, Journal
of Cultural Geography, Journal of Cultural Geography, 10:2, 66-98.
Part II – Immigration and Migration in the Borderlands
Week Six –
Tuesday October 7th – Forced Migration, the Canadian First Nations and the
Kairos Blanket Exercise
No reading.
Thursday October 9th – Migrant Workers and the Mexican-American Borderlands
Reading:
Sandy Tolan, “La Frontera: Land of Opportunity or Place of Broken Dreams?” , Oscar J. Martínez,
Editor, U.S.- Mexico Borderlands, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Jaguar Books on
Latin America, Number 1. Lanham, MD: SR Books, 2006, pp. 203-212.
Assignment #1 Due in Online Course Drop Box by 11:59 pm
Reading Week – October 14 - 17 – No Classes
Week Seven –
Tuesday October 21st - Immigration, Migration and the Canadian-American
Borderlands
Reading:
Bridget Hayden, “Impeach the traitors: citizenship, sovereignty and nation in immigration control
activism in the United States”, Social Semiotics, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2010, 155-174.
Thursday October 23rd - Immigration, Migration and the Mexican -American
Borderlands
Readings:
Matt Bakker. “Mexican migration, transnationalism, and the re-scaling of citizenship in North
America”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 34 No.1 January 2011, pp. 1-19
Week Eight –
Tuesday October 28th - Guest Speaker, Dr. Benjamin Railton; Topic: Chinese
Exclusion in North America
Reading:
Kornel S. Chang, “Excerpt from Pacific Connections: the Making of the U.S. – Canadian
Borderlands”, Journal of Transnational American Studies, 5(1) 2013, pp. 1-16.
Thursday October 30th - Drugs, Illegal Migration and the Borderlands
Reading:
Holly Karibo, “Mainlining Along the Line: Consuming Heroin in the Great Lakes Border Region,
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1945-1960”, 49 Parallel, Vol. 30 (Autumn 2012): 1-32.
Assignment #2 Due in Online Course Drop Box by 11:59 pm
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Part III – Water and Sustainability in the Borderlands
Week Nine –
Tuesday November 4th - Water Transportation and Borderland Cooperation: the
St. Lawrence Seaway
Reading:
Claire Farnham. “The St. Lawrence Seaway: A Bi-National Political Marathon, A Local and State
Initiative”, New York History, Vol. 85, No. 4 9 (Fall 2004), pp. 359-385.
Thursday November 6th - Water Transportation and Contested Space: The
Northwest Passage
Reading:
Jeffrey R. Parkey, (2002) “Assessing the Institutional Alternatives for Future Northwest Passage
Governance”, American Review of Canadian Studies, 42:2, 171-194.
Week Ten Tuesday November 11th - Water as a Contested Resource: Along the 49th
Parallel
Readings:
Frédéric Lasserre, “Continental Bulk Water Transfers: Chimera or Real Possibility?”, in Water
Without Borders? Canada, United States, and Shared Waters, Emma Norman, Alice Cohen, and
Karen Bakker, eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013, pp. 88-118.
Bruce Granville Miller, “West Coast Indians/First Nations on the Border of Contagion in the
Post – 9/11 Era”, Sterling Evans, ed. The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests,
Essays on the Regional History of the Forty-ninth Parallel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
2006, pp. 49-66.
Thursday November 13th -Water as a Contested Resource: Drought in the
Mexican-American Borderlands
Reading:
Wendy Jepson. (2012) “Claiming Space, Claiming Water: Contested Legal Geographies of Water
in South Texas”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102:3, 614-631.
Week Eleven –
Tuesday November 18th - Water Pollution: - The Gulf of Mexico and the BP Oil
Spill
Reading:
Rick S. Kurtz. “Oil Spill Causation and the Deepwater Horizon Spill”, Review of Policy Research,
Volume 30, Number 4 (2013): 366-380.
Thursday November 20th - Group Presentations – Groups 1, 2 &3
No readings.
Week Twelve –
Tuesday November 25th – Group Presentations - Groups 4, 5 & 6
No readings.
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Thursday November 27th – Group Presentations – Groups 7 & 8; Class
Discussion: Do borders make a difference?
No readings.
Review Class – Tuesday December 2nd
Study Days – December 4th & 5th – No Classes
Final Examination - TBA
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