B/ordering Space

Border Region

Europe, North America , Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Netherlands, Palestine, Salzburg.

Language(s)

Anglais

Type

Note on a scientific book publication

Main Category

Governance – Power – Cooperation

Language – Culture – Identity

Theories – Concepts – Terms

Introduction

This publication offers a conceptualisation of the social and spatial practices that emerged in border regions in opposition to or in line with the phenomenon of globalisation at the end of the 20th century

Summary

This collective publication offers an insight into some of the many and varied social and political practices emerging in the border regions of the Western world as a reaction to the phenomenon of globalisation. It proposes to qualify these practices with the notion of "B/ordering space". One thing they all have in common is that they are processes linked to the existence of borders which manifest on a spatial and territorial level.

Content

The publication is part of the Border Regions Series. It brings together contributions by researchers who worked side by side from 1999 to 2002 in the Human Geography of the University of Nijmegen. The different contributions are all part of a critical and engaged stance in geography.

The first part of the publication looks at the inescapable relations that exist between the process of globalisation and the establishment of borders. This part contains the following contributions:

"The Changing Discourses on Political Boundaries: Mapping the Backgrounds, Contexts and Contents" by Anssi Paasi,
"Borders Unbound: Globalization, Regionalism, and the Postmetropolitan Transition" by Edward W. Soja,
"Regions and Everyday Regionalizations: From a Space-centred towards an Action-centred Human Geography" by Benno Werlen,
"Shakyorders? Transnational Migrants as Strategic Actors" by David Ley.

The second part addresses border creation practices and the power relationships that arise out of local or territorial spatial claims around these borders. This part contains the following contributions:

"Regionalization in Europe: Stories, Institutions and Boundaries" by Arnoud Lagendyk,
"On Paradigms and Doctrines: The 'Euroregio of Salzburg' as a Bordered Space" by Peter Weichhart,
"Borderline Communities: Canadian Single Industry Towns, Staples, and Harold" by Innis Trevor Barnes,
"Splintering Palestine" by Derek Gregory.

Part 3 focuses on the spatial effects of social practices and, more specifically, their ability to overcome the constraints imposed by borders and which allow for openness, permeability, movements and a certain hybridity. This part contains the following contributions:

"Scientists Without Borders or Moments of Insight, Spaces of Recognition: Situated Practice, Science, and the Navigation of Urban Everyday Life" by Allan Pred,
"Debordering Subjectivity" by Huib Ernste,
"Friedrich Ratzel's Spatial Turn Identities of Disciplinary Space and its Borders Between the Anthropo- and Political Geography of Germany and the United States" by Wolfgang Natter.

The final part looks at the rhetorical and symbolic movements that are occurring in the discourse on American and European borders. This final part consists of four contributions.

"The Poetry of Boundaries: Reflections from the Portuguese-Spanish Borderlands" by James D. Sidaway,
"Bor(der)ing StoriesSpaces of Absence along the Dutch-German Border " by Anke Struver,
R®stigraben': A Discourse on National Identity in Switzerland" by Wolfgang Zierhofer,
"On the Border with Deleuze and Guattari" Keith Woodward and John Paul Jones.

Conclusions

This publication became an early reference work in border studies. It emphasises the importance of analysing and contextualising borders in relation to the social practices that can be observed there and, more specifically, against the background of globalisation, a phenomenon which has escaped the constraints linked to borders.

The notion of b/ordering space refers to any human and social practice that contributes to curtailing the processes of homogenisation linked to cosmopolitanism, transnationalism or other developments associated with post-modernism. This notion re-introduces the idea that these are not global processes and that local social practices remain that are resisting them, in particular around territorial borders.

The notion of B/ordering space is an expression of the "spatial turn" that occurred in human sciences at the beginning of the 20th century. This turn is fuelled by the study and understanding of the spatial phenomena induced in the social sphere. This spatial approach is intended to override the disciplinary boundaries existing in the scientific sphere since it aims to examine the relationship between the discourses on borders and their materiality.

Key Messages

The globalisation phenomenon has not generated cultural or social homogeneity in Europe and in North America. Set against this phenomenon we find social practices concentrated around borders in our Western world. These practices are manifested at the spatial, local and territorial levels.

Studying and understanding these practices requires, on a scientific level, the establishment of new concepts such as "Bordering", concepts that account for the spatiality, materiality and dynamic quality of the practices.

Lead

Henk van Houtum, Olivier Kramsch, Wolfgang Zierhofer

Author of the entry

Sylvain

MARBEHANT

Contributions

Trevor Barnes, Huib Ernste, Derek Gregory, Henk van Houtum, John Paul Jones, Olivier Kramsch, Arnoud Lagend, David Ley, Wolfgang Natter, Anssi Paasi, Allan Pred, James D. Sidaway, Edward W. Soja, Anke Striiver, Peter Weichhart, Benno Werlen, Keith Woodward, Wolfgang Zierhofer.

Links

https://henkvanhoutum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/borderingspace.pdf

Keywords

re-territorialisation

Power

Identity

Contact Person(s)