Savage Frontier

From MacArthur Genius Fellow Ieva Jusionyte, a groundbreaking anthropological study of how security is organized, perceived, and lived along the hot border where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay converge. This highly original work of anthropology combines extensive ethnographic fieldwork and investigative journalism to explain how security is understood, experienced, and constructed along the Triple Frontera, the border region shared by Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. One of the major hot borders in the Western Hemisphere, the Triple Fronterais associated with drug and human trafficking, contraband, money laundering, and terrorism. Its also a place where residents, particularly on the Argentine side, are subjected to increased governmental control and surveillance. How does a scholar tell a story about a place characterized by illicit international trading, rampant violence, and governmental militarization? Jusionyte inventively centered her ethnographic fieldwork on a community of journalists who investigate and report on crime and violence in the region. Through them she learned that a fair amount of petty, small-scale illicit trading goes unreporteda consequence of a community invested in promoting the idea that the border is a secure place that does not warrant militarized attention. The authors work demonstrates that while media is often seen as a powerful tool for spreading a sense of danger and uncertainty, sensationalizing crime and violence, and creating moral panics, journalists can actually do the opposite. Those who selectively report on illegal activities use the news to tell particular types of stories in an attempt to make their communities look and ultimately be more secure.