Border Patrol Cowboys: U.S. Rodeo Performance, Property and Whiteness

This autoethnography analyzes the U.S. Border Patrol's sponsorship of Professional Bull Riding (PBR). I consider the Border Patrol “capture” halftime shows to critique white nationalist narratives in these popular contexts of “Western” entertainment. I consider how rodeos performatively affirm the U.S. as a white supremacist nation. I theorize how rodeo and PBR commodify and normalize the spectacle of land ownership and patrol of the U.S./México border. I argue that the cowboy signifies and secures U.S. property ownership. I ground my claims in stories of different rodeos to analyze how the “play” of rodeo performs real violence.