Abject Intimacies: Border Wall Art as Queer Archives of the Global Border Industrial Complex

This article argues that border wall art depicting homoerotic intimacy between political leaders constitutes a “queer archive” of the global border industrial complex (GBIC). Through an analysis of three murals on the US-Mexico, Israel-Palestine, and Berlin border walls, I demonstrate how these murals function as contradictory rhetorical artifacts. While the border wall murals in this article critique state-sanctioned sexual violence, they often inadvertently replicate the sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic tropes they seek to expose. Employing a queer archival methodology attentive to ephemerality, affect, and non-linear memory, I examine how these transient border artworks reveal what I term “abject intimacies”: the weaponized proximities of cisgender white male leaders who publicly espouse anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ policies while engaging in displays of same-sex sensuality. Reading these murals as living, transnational counter-archives illuminates how the GBIC operates through intimate exchanges of power, surveillance technologies, and imperial logics that simultaneously eroticize and criminalize marginalized bodies.