In 2024, Madeline Edgar won the annual RIAS/UCR “Sustainable Freedoms” Essay Prize for her eye-opening and thought-provoking paper “Constructing Deadly Nature at the US-Mexico Border.” Her prize was awarded (by video call) before the presentation of our annual RIAS Environmental History lecture.
Madeline’s paper analyzes the development of US immigration and border control policy that specifically and deliberately weaponizes the harsh environment of the American southwest, in an attempt to discourage illegal border crossings. Policies that drive undocumented migrants away from “organized” and well-manned border checkpoints and funnel them into the deadliest and harshest parts of the region, where mortality rates are strikingly high, along the “Devil’s Highway”—paths that crisscross a desert that has claimed the lives of thousands. Madeline’s essay not only outlines the weaponization of the environment against migrants in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, but also explores how such policies are normalized and excused in the American consciousness and in American politics.
The jury especially appreciated how Madeline’s paper addresses such a timely and relevant topic, highlighting the alarming weaponization of the deadly environment in the US Southwest as a method of deterring (often refugee) migration, even at the inevitable cost of human lives. The normalization of this US border policy in recent years is especially concerning as we witness rising instability in parts of Latin America and increased pressure at the US-Mexico border.
Her research paper beautifully combines issues related to human rights with issues related to environmental challenges–precisely what this prize seeks to reward and stimulate more of.
The essay can be read here.
