Title: Border crossings as soft power: international relations, digital diplomacy and the 'border control museum complex'

Authors: Ruben Zaiotti

Addresses: Department of Political Science, Dalhousie University, 6299 South Street, Halifax, NS, B3H-4R2, Canada

Abstract: Museums dedicated to migration and migration-processing facilities have proliferated around the world in recent times. The purpose of this paper is to explore how these institutions, through their communicative practices on social media, are shaping contemporary narratives about border control, national identity and global politics. The paper examines two of the most notorious examples of what Walters calls the 'border control museum complex', namely Berlin's Wall Museum at Check Point Charlie and New York's Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. Through a netnographical analysis of these museums' Facebook official accounts, the paper shows how their communicative practices construct a liberal vision of border crossings as sites of freedom and opportunity, glossing over the exclusionary features of borders and border control.

Keywords: border control; migration; museum; international relations; digital diplomacy; social media.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2023.130764

International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2023 Vol.7 No.3, pp.239 - 253

Received: 06 Dec 2021
Accepted: 10 Jul 2022
Published online: 04 May 2023 *