David Newman
Fonction
Professor
Organisation
Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our 'borderless' world
The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our 'borderless' world
Border Region
Worldwide
Language(s)
Anglais
Main Category
Introduction
The article runs through the main achievements in border studies and looks at the future priorities in the field, whilst placing the emphasis on bottom-up approaches.
Summary
The article takes a look back at the emergence of the field of border studies at the beginning of the 21st century. A look back at the emergence of the field at the beginning of the 21st century. It insists on the need to build a common language and shared concepts, but without defending the idea of a single, unified theory. This text puts forward a programme to follow to delve deeper into the research themes in the field, a programme which places a great deal of importance on the analysis and understanding of individual accounts and to everyday experiences from the study field..
Content
The text article opens with an epistemological reflection recalling that the inescapable starting point for any research with borders as its subject has to be the recognition that they are lines of demarcation established to give order to the world, even in the era of globalisation. A brief review of the state of the art pinpoints the main approaches that have succeeded one another in this field: conventional historical and geographical approaches, the study of cross-border dynamics and the deconstruction of the notion of the world without borders, interdisciplinary approaches, understanding the relationship between border and identity, the different territorial scales and the related issues around governance.
The article then goes over some important notions and subjects in the field with the aim of arriving at a shared terminology: borders as processes, borders as institutions, transitional spaces, the opening and closing of borders.
The final part of the text draws on concrete examples to illustrate how the nature of borders and the way they are experienced on a daily basis impact the narratives and discourse on borders. This part addresses the Irish, French-Spanish (Pyrenees), Israeli-Palestinian and the India-Pakistan borders. These different examples remind us that to arrive at a relevant, common terminology we cannot exclude the history of borders and the multiple definitions they take on in different scientific fields.
Conclusions
The phenomenon of globalisation may have placed the emphasis on the opening of borders, but, for all that, it has not overcome the fact that above all borders embody lines of demarcation. Demarcation always generates a process of separation, which can then lead to unification. It is the latter process which, although secondary, deserves all the attention of border studies in a peace-or-conflict context.
The favoured subject of border studies is not the border itself, but above all the set of tangible or intangible phenomena linked to the cultures, history and social practices that are concentrated around this border.
It is neither possible nor pertinent to develop a single theory on borders. On the other hand, it is necessary, essential even, to work together on building a common language. In this respect, border studies as a discipline has something in common with the field it studies. Although we can cross the borders between scientific disciplines, we still cannot erase them altogether.
Lead
David Newman
Keywords
Contact Person(s)
Date of creation
2020
Publié dans
Progress in Human Geography, April 2006