Pop-up Geopolitics: Flexing Space-Time at the U.S.–Mexico Border

This paper develops the concept of ‘pop-up geopolitics’ to refer to the rapid, short-term implementation of border and immigration enforcement along the U.S.–Mexico border. Drawing from fieldwork alongside media and policy analysis related to Operation Lone Star, a sprawling, joint mission between several intra- and interstate agencies in Texas, we demonstrate how pop-up geopolitics captures the ephemeral technologies and techniques of governance that simultaneously flex space and time. By centring the installation of concertina wire and floating marine barriers at the U.S.–Mexico border as well as the construction of a new military base and so-called ‘soft-sided’ facilities, we show pop-up geopolitics operates through three, key registers. First, pop-up geopolitics adapts material infrastructures to provide fast, versatile solutions that intervene in the built environment. Second, pop-up geopolitics bypasses traditional forms of oversight and regulation. Third, pop-up geopolitics generates a multiplicity of opportunities for different stakeholders. Ultimately, we demonstrate how pop-up geopolitics is constituted by spatial and temporal flexibility through which short-term and temporary efforts become seemingly permanent. In doing so, we emphasise pop-up geopolitics as a site and subject of considerable inquiry for geographers that encompasses border and immigration enforcement in addition to other topics in political geography.