EVERYDAY EXPERIENCES OF NATIONAL SECURITY ON THE OLYMPIC PENINSULA by Leigh Christine Barrick B.A., University of Puget Sound, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2013 © Leigh Christine Barrick, 2013 Abstract The United States-Canada political boundary has long been praised as the most extensive peaceful international border in the world. However, this reputation has shifted considerably in recent years. The US has strengthened its northern border security infrastructure at and between ports of entry, hiring new enforcement personnel and upgrading technology to respond to potential threats emerging from Canada. I analyze this change of United States policy and practice by focusing on one US borderland context: northwestern Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. My analysis is driven by the following questions: (1) how do security tactics respond to specific cross-border threats; and (2) why are some Olympic Peninsula residents contesting securitization? In working through these questions, my objective is to foreground everyday enforcement encounters as constitutive of geopolitics – in other words, to identify how the people and places of the peninsula both impact and are impacted by border practices. I argue that national security tactics make borderland residents on the Olympic Peninsula insecure. More specifically, border policing practices carried out in remote inland areas make both law enforcement officers and peninsula residents targeted for policing feel unsafe, without clearly responding to precise cross-border threats. In response, grassroots groups have organized, questioning the relationship between the mission and everyday practices of the United States Border Patrol in rural areas of the US northern border. Analytically, I draw from materially-grounded feminist theory, basing my argument on two conceptual points of departure – first, that security is embodied; and second, that inequalities are interconnected. Drawing insights from the contestations to securitization on the peninsula, I conclude with a consideration of how national security tactics could be more accountable to the wellbeing of borderland residents. ii Preface This thesis is an original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Leigh Barrick. The fieldwork reported throughout the thesis was approved by the UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board under the project identification number H12-01105, for which Dr. Juanita Sundberg was the Principal Investigator. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Figures .................................................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................... ix Chapters ............................................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Analytical framework and methodology ............................................................................ 5 2.1 Analytical framework................................................................................................................... 5 2.1.1 Security as embodied .............................................................................................................. 5 2.1.2 Inequalities as interconnected ................................................................................................ 9 2.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 13 2.3 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 20 Chapter 3: Securitization in context ................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 Contemporary securitization ..................................................................................................... 22 3.3 Securitization: A new development?......................................................................................... 24 3.4 The Border Patrol ...................................................................................................................... 29 3.5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter 4: National security ............................................................................................................ 33 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 33 4.2 Prevention through deterrence ................................................................................................. 35 4.3 Cross-border threats.................................................................................................................. 40 4.3.1 From contraband, to terrorism ............................................................................................. 40 4.3.2 Growing DHS authority ......................................................................................................... 46 4.3.3 Rural landscapes.................................................................................................................... 50 4.4 Security on the Olympic Peninsula ............................................................................................ 55 4.4.1 Brush picking ......................................................................................................................... 55 4.4.2 The securitization of salal ...................................................................................................... 61 iv 4.4.3 Enforcement encounters ...................................................................................................... 68 4.4.4 Discriminatory policing .......................................................................................................... 73 4.5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................ 76 Chapter 5: Experiences of (in)security .............................................................................................. 78 5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 78 5.2 Bureaucratic relations ............................................................................................................... 80 5.3 Organizing efforts ...................................................................................................................... 82 5.3.1 Climate of fear ....................................................................................................................... 82 5.3.2 Divisions and solidarities ....................................................................................................... 89 5.3.3 ‘Constitution free zone’ ......................................................................................................... 94 5.3.4 Civil rights and liberties ......................................................................................................... 98 5.4 Bureaucratic engagement ....................................................................................................... 103 5.4.1 Public forum ........................................................................................................................ 103 5.4.2 Whistleblower ..................................................................................................................... 107 5.4.3 Transparency ....................................................................................................................... 112 5.4.4 Law enforcement ................................................................................................................ 116 5.5 Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 119 Chapter 6: Moving forward ........................................................................................................... 122 6.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................