Patrolling the Homeland

"If one wants to understand the complexity of living in our contemporary world, then look no further than this book. John Parsons’ study of border militias in the United States offers a unique entree into the larger issues we all confront today. This is one of the most ethnographically and theoretically significant works in the anthropology of ethics that I have read in a long time."
- Jarrett Zigon, University of Virginia.

Patrolling the Homeland explores the tension surrounding the militarization of national borders through the perspective of US militia volunteers. Amidst a humanitarian crisis in which more than 7,800 people have lost their lives attempting to cross the border, US militias patrol the deserts along the Mexican border in camouflage, armed with assault rifles and night-vision goggles to "protect" the US. How and why US border militias conduct their activities is paramount to understanding similar movements, ideologies, and rhetoric around the world that oppose the movement of refugees and support the closing or restriction of international and regional borders.

Based on extensive and engaging ethnography, Patrolling the Homeland explores not how people strive to be moral but how they maintain their self-perception as already and always moral individuals in spite of evidence to the contrary. This book signifies a creative and unique addition to morality and ethics through an honest and critical examination of a unique social movement indicative of contemporary society. A valuable read for anthropologists, sociologists, criminologists, and individuals interested in morality and ethics, militias, border studies, and policing.

The Book

In Patrolling the Homeland, I introduce a moral framework that helps explain how people can enjoy an activity one volunteer labeled “hunting humans.” The theoretical framework I have presented in this book is a warning as to how easily we can create social collectives that condone what we love, what we enjoy, and confirm our moral selves. It is not an objective morality but a relative one, and in being so, it is inherently dangerous. I have explored the moral experience of volunteers in three US militias as they operate on and concern themselves with undocumented migration across the US–Mexico border, but the theoretical framework applies to any and all sets of social relations.

Border Watch, the composite of three militias the book concentrates on, offers an invaluable space to explore morality and ethics because they are the powerful. Unlike many studies exploring ethics and morality in terms of the Good Life, typically in contexts where this is a struggle, those in Border Watch had the power to define themselves, their reality, and the Other. This book, as a result, explores what kind of world we can create and maintain when the power to do so resides with us and those who think like us. Crucially, it provides an insight into how the contexts we exist within are created by collections of powerful individuals, which in turn, create the “laboratories” where others strive to be moral. But critically, it offers a warning as to the danger inherent in moral assemblages and in the freedom to choose and navigate between them.

This book is the result of intellectual curiosity, human empathy, and at times, genuine fear. The subject matter and the participants who were willing to let me into their lives are just like you and me, albeit from a different world. I have tried to interpret that world to better understand it. I hope this book and my broader work give you a glimpse into the lives of civilians patrolling a national border.

About

I am a cultural anthropologist from regional Australia. I have had a varied work history that includes an abattoir, a box factory, fencing, bus driving, and the film industry, among others. My varied experiences have enabled me to relate to and converse with a range of people and have been foundational to my success as an anthropologist.

I have conducted research in the Australian bush with individuals looking to rediscover an imagined past and in the deserts of the US-Mexico border with people looking to defend their nation from a perceived threat. I am currently exploring the attraction and pull of ‘fast money’ and the desire to exit the ‘rat race’ of modern capitalism with people attempting to day-trade the financial markets.

My research and life have been founded on curiosity and the desire to understand the human experience, mine and others’. I came to cultural anthropology late, but my journey here has made me the anthropologist I am, with the empathy to listen and now the skills to analyze.

I have been invited to speak at academic, public, and policy conferences and meetings. I have presented my research in Europe, North America, and Australia. I have taught in Australia and the US, and high schools in the US.