With the spread of Covid-19, there has been an explosion of newly reinforced and modified borders around the world. Between March 2020 and February 2021, nation-states have implemented over 100,000 movement restrictions. The United States has rejected asylum seekers by claimingthey pose a health risk. Spain has required negative Covid-19 tests as a condition of entry, and 91% of the world population live in countries with Covid-19-related travel restrictions.
As the second longest and the most crossed border wall on the planet, the US–Mexico border has been especially affected by Covid-19. In this chapter, I want to use the US–Mexico border during Covid-19 as a case study for thinking about what I call architectures of motion. I define an architecture of motion as a pattern traced out by human and nonhuman bodies thatshapes space. Architecture, in this definition, is a pattern-in-motion that shapes and is shaped by the bodies that move through it at various scales.
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