Intersecting sovereignties: Border camps and border villages in wartime North America

Abstract

The forced removal of civilians of Japanese ancestry from homes along the sensitive West Coast of North America, and their incarceration in detention centres and remote concentration camps, remains a particularly troubling episode within Second World War histories. State sovereignty, imposed in this manner, created an internal border condition where a group of minority citizens was disenfranchised. The denial of civil liberties was further spatialised in the camp facilities erected for their accommodation; barrack cities in the USA and repurposed or rebuilt work camps in Canada. This chapter compares the facilities at Manzanar, California, with those at New Denver, British Columbia, examinin..