Borderline Citizen
eBook - ePub

Borderline Citizen

Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood

  1. 216 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Borderline Citizen

Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood

About this book

In Borderline Citizen Robin Hemley wrestles with what it means to be a citizen of the world, taking readers on a singular journey through the hinterlands of national identity. As a polygamist of place, Hemley celebrates Guy Fawkes Day in the contested Falkland Islands; Canada Day and the Fourth of July in the tiny U.S. exclave of Point Roberts, Washington; Russian Federation Day in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad; Handover Day among protesters in Hong Kong; and India Day along the most complicated border in the world. Forgoing the exotic descriptions of faraway lands common in traditional travel writing, Borderline Citizen upends the genre with darkly humorous and deeply compassionate glimpses into the lives of exiles, nationalists, refugees, and others. Hemley's superbly rendered narratives detail these individuals, including a Chinese billionaire who could live anywhere but has chosen to situate his ornate mansion in the middle of his impoverished ancestral village, a black nationalist wanted on thirty-two outstanding FBI warrants exiled in Cuba, and an Afghan refugee whose intentionally altered birth date makes him more easy to deport despite his harrowing past. Part travelogue, part memoir, part reportage, Borderline Citizen redefines notions of nationhood through an exploration of the arbitrariness of boundaries and what it means to belong.

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Yes, you can access Borderline Citizen by Robin Hemley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Prologue: The Traveler in the Twenty-First Century
  9. Walled Citizens
  10. No One Will See Me Again Forever
  11. The Great Land Swap
  12. Don’t Be Too Difficult
  13. Close Calls with a Potentially Violent Felon in Cuba
  14. They Have Forgotten Many Things
  15. Mr. Chen’s Mountain
  16. To the Rainforest Room
  17. Present
  18. Celebrating Russian Federation Day with Immanuel Kant
  19. Field Notes for the Graveyard Enthusiast
  20. Survivor Stories
  21. Independence Days