The Ashgate Companion to Border Studies

The Ashgate Companion to Border Studies

Border Region
Europe, Arctic, Antarctic, Asia, USA, Latin America, Africa
Language(s)
Anglais
Introduction

This compendium documents the broad understanding of the evolution of thinking in the field of Border Studies.

Summary

The first part (part I) is devoted to conceptual aspects of border studies. Geopolitics are elaborated in part II. In part III, border enforcement in the 21st century is studied. Part IV is dedicated to the mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion implied by border tracing. The following section (part V) is devoted to the role of borders in everyday lives. The borderless world hypothesis is questioned. The next two parts entitled Crossing Borders (VI) and Creating Neighbourhoods (VII), are dedicated to borderlands and cross-border processes. In the final part (VIII) the interactions with nature and environment at the border are treated.

Content

The eight parts of the companion reflect main strands of the field, dealing with social, political, environmental and economic aspects of the border. Part I is dedicated to conceptual aspects of border studies. Experienced scholars elaborate on their perspectives on theorizing borders. There is no common theoretical basis, but some concepts and terms are shared by different disciplines. In the first and the second contribution, Anssi Paasi and David Newman present an overview of various conceptual approaches in border studies and recent research agendas. Hank van Houtum questions the concept of borders and argues that ˊthe border is a maskˊ. Tatiana Zhurzhenko provides insights on the historical legitimating of borders via collective memory. Alan K. Henrikson gives an introduction to the concept of good neighborhood. He developed this concept to overcome the political and social division that borders might represent for neighboring peoples. Stefanie Kron introduces the concept of intersectionality. This can be used as a methodological tool to understand the combination of axes of difference in borderlands.

In part II, James Wesley Scott shows how borders have been shifted in Europe. This can be considered as a result of the fall of the ˊIron Curtainˊ in 1989 as well as the EU enlargement in 2004. Nicos Peristianis and John C. Mavris (Cyprus), Vladimir Kolossov (post-Soviet boundaries), Lassi Heininen and Michele Zebich-Knos (Arctic and Antarctic border debates), and Karin Dean (Thai-, Sino- and Indo-Myanmar boundaries ) present a set of case studies on highly disputed borderlands.

Part III is concerned with the securitization of borders at state's borders and within states. It starts with Jason Ackleson's contribution on the political dynamics of recent border management. Heather Nicol analyses the changes at the Canadian-United States border. Alison J. Williams assesses the extent of the militarization of the US borders. The contribution by Edgardo Manero is dedicated to border regimes in Latin America. Valérie Gelézeau discusses the border between North and South Korea.

In part IV, Jan D. Markusse gives an input on national minorities in Europe. He investigates three examples in more detail: the Basque Country, the autonomous Province of Bozen-Alto Adige and the Slovak-Hungarian border region. In Alexander C. Diener's contribution the struggle for territorial belonging of the Kazakhs minority in Mongolia is discussed. Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh's chapter refers to Persian history and mythology in order to discuss the concept of territorial identities and borders.

Part V starts with a contribution by Roos Pijpers on the political economy of borders in the EU. The main focus of this chapter is on borders and labor migration. Chun Yang (Greater Pearl River Delta) and Tim Bunnell, Hamzah Muzaini and James D. Sidaway (Singapore) provide two Asian examples on the difficulties that might appear when economic developments reach across (national) borders. The final chapter by Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi is dedicated to the cross-border cooperation at the US-Mexican border. The main focus is on economic cross-border cooperation (basically NAFTA).

In part VI Eunyoung Christina Choi discusses the changes of the geopolitical frame along the North-Korean/Chinese border. Parvati Raghuram and Nicola Piper dedicate their chapter to the distinct meanings that female migrants in Asia attach to borders. Elisabeth Bäschlin and Mohamed Sidati elaborate on a state without (internationally recognized) national borders: the Sahrawi in Western Sahara. The various boundary conceptions as well as the contemporary border realities of the Sahrawi, a former nomadic people, are discussed.

Part VII begins with an input by Heikki Eskelinen on the Finnish borders. The historical backgrounds of the borders differ strongly, leading to differing developments of interethnic relationships across national borders. Károly Kocsis and Monika Mária Váradi discuss the Carpatho-Pannonian Area where everyday neighborhood relations are still very much influenced by history. In the final chapter Gabriel Popescu examines the difficulties and opportunities that cross-border cooperation faces in the Lower Danube Euroregion.

In part VIII, Juliet J. Fall and Sanette L.A. Ferreira discuss the problematic situation caused by different understandings of the concepts of ˊnatural resourcesˊ and ˊnatureˊ in two adjacent states. In the final chapter Clive Schofield examines the situation of maritime borders in a global context.

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Theorizing Borders: Conceptual Aspects of Border Studies

  • 1. A Border Theory: An Unattainable Dream or a Realistic Aim for Border Scholars?
  • 2. Contemporary Research Agendas in Border Studies: An Overview
  • 3. The Mask of the Border
  • 4. Borders and Memory
  • 5. Border Regions as Neighbourhoods
  • 6. The Border as Method: Towards an Analysis of Political Subjectivities in Transmigrant Spaces

Part II: Geopolitics: State, Nation and Power Relations

  • 7. Borders, Border Studies and EU Enlargement
  • 8. The ˊGreen Lineˊ of Cyprus: A contested Boundary in Flux
  • 9. Post-Soviet Boundaries: Territoriality, Identity, Security, Circulation 10. Polar Regions – Comparing Arctic and Antarctic Border Debates
  • 11. Spaces, Territorialities and Ethnography on the Thai-, Sino- and Indo-Myanmar Boundaries

Part III: Border Enforcement in the 21st Century

  • 12. The Emerging Politics of Border Management: Policy and Research Considerations
  • 13. Building Borders the Hard Way: Enforcing North American Security Post 9/11
  • 14. Blurring Boundaries/Sharpening Borders: Analysing the US’s Use of Military Aviation Technologies to Secure International Borders, 2001-2008
  • 15. A Retrospective Look at the Nature of National Borders in Latin America
  • 16. The Inter-Korean Border Region – ˊMeta-borderˊ of the Cold War and Metamorphic Frontier of the Peninsula

Part IV: Borders and Territorial Identities: The Mechanisms of Exclusion and Inclusion

  • 17. National Minorities in European Border Regions 1
  • 8. The Borderland Existence of the Mongolian Kazakhs: Boundaries and the Construction of Territorial Belonging
  • 19. Borders and Territorial Identity: Persian Identity Makes Iran an Empire of the Mind

Part V: The Role of Borders in a Seemingly Borderless World

  • 20. Waiting for Work: Labour Migration and the Political Economy of Borders
  • 21. A Cross-boundary Mega City-region in China under ˊTwo Systemsˊ: Multi-level Governance in the Greater Pearl River Delta
  • 22. Global City Frontiers: Singapore’s Hinterland and the Contested Geographies of Bintan, Indonesia
  • 23. Cross-border Cooperation and Regional Responses to NAFTA and Globalization

Part VI: Crossing Borders

  • 24. Everyday Practices of Bordering and the Threatened Bodies of Undocumented North Korean Border-Crossers
  • 25. Women and Migration in Asia – Eroding Borders, New Fixities
  • 26. Western Sahara – Territoriality, Border Conceptions and Border Realities

Part VII: Creating Neighbourhoods

  • 27. Different Neighbours: Interaction and Cooperation at Finland’s Western and Eastern Borders
  • 28. Borders and Neighbourhoods in the Carpatho-Pannonian Area
  • 29. Transcending the National Space: The Institutionalization of Cross-border Territory in the Lower Danube Euroregion

Part VIII: Nature and Environment

  • 30. Natural Resources and Transnational Governance
  • 31. One Decade of Transfrontier Conservation Areas in Southern Africa
  • 32. The Delimitation of Maritime Boundaries: An Incomplete Mosaic
Key Messages
  • The field of Border Studies has undergone major transformations in the past. Since the 1980s it is set in a multidisciplinary framework.
  • The roles and functions can only be understood in their context.
  • Borders are complex social and spatial phenomena which are not invariable or static. They must be understood as dynamic.
Lead

Doris Wastl-Walter

Contributions

Doris Wastl-Walter

Anssi Paasi

David Newman

Henk van Houtum

Tatiana Zhurzhenko

Alan K. Henrikson

Stefanie Kron

James Wesley Scott

Nicos Peristianis and John C. Mavris

Vladimir Kolossov

Lassi Heininen and Michele Zebich-Knos

Karin Dean

Jason Ackleson

Heather Nicol

Alison J. Williams

Edgardo Manero

Valérie Gelézeau

Jan D. Markusse

Alexander C. Diener

Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh

Roos Pijpers

Chun Yang

Tim Bunnell, Hamzah Muzaini and James D. Sidaway

Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi

Eunyoung Christina Choi

Parvati Raghuram and Nicola Piper

Elisabeth Bäschlin and Mohamed Sidati

Heikki Eskelinen

Károly Kocsis and Monika Mária Váradi

Gabriel Popescu

Juliet J. Fall

Sanette L.A. Ferreira

Clive Schofield

 

Contact Person(s)

Doris Wastl-Walter

Fonction
Professorin Emerita
Organisation
Geographisches Institut, Universität Bern, Schweiz
Date of creation
2018
Date
Publisher
Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited
Identifier

ISBN: 978-0-7546-7406-1

E-ISBN: 978-0-7546-9047-4