Selected conceptual issues in border studies

Border Region

Monde entier

Language(s)

Anglais

Type

Note on a scientific paper, a conference paper, etc.

Main Category

Theories – Concepts – Terms

Introduction

The article based on the outcomes of the EUBORDERSCAPES project aims to produce common and trans-disciplinary conceptual frameworks for the concept of the border.

Summary

The article covers several themes and concepts that have been important in the development of border studies over the last few years. In doing so, it addresses emerging research perspectives of a nature to bring about a conceptual change in the viewpoint of human geography. Based on the existing literature, the authors emphasise that current work on border is looking at the reasons underlying border production through the daily practices of the populations, and by understanding borders as institutions, processes and symbols all at the same time. Particular attention is paid to the process of reconfiguring state borders in terms of territorial control, security and sovereignty as well as the interrelations between the spheres of daily life, power and the construction of social borders.

Content

The article is based on the first results of the EUBORDERSCAPES project supported by the 7th European Framework Programme. EUBORDERSCAPES revisits the themes and concepts that have been important in the development of border studies and examines the emerging research perspectives that seem to be important driving forces in conceptual change.

Border studies have become a research field that encompasses a wide range of disciplines. In addition, border studies have moved on from being predominantly concerned with formal state borders and ethnocultural areas to the study of borders on various socio-spatial and geographical levels, ranging from local and municipal levels to the global, regional and supra-state levels.

Since the nineties, there has been a revival in border studies and borders are no longer a given - they emerge through socio-political processes of creating or delineating boundaries that occur within society.

In this essay, the authors address a central issue that characterises the contemporary debate, namely: how are the formal processes (for example, the State) and informal (social) processes of producing borders connected to each other?
Two aspects are dealt with in the article:

the evolving process of reconfiguring state borders in terms of territorial control, security and sovereignty, and
the link between the worlds of everyday life, power relationships and the construction of social borders

These two processes reflect change and continuity and reflection on borders and also raise a certain number of questions.

The article deals with eight themes:

Bordering as a perspective
Borders and socio-spatial territorialities: evolving contexts of nationhood and statehood
De-bordering and re-bordering beyond the state – territoriality in flux?
Territorial sovereignty beyond traditional states
Borders, territorial identity and everyday lifeworlds
Symbolic bordering and world geopolitical visions
Securitization and ethical issues
Ethical issues in border studies.

Conclusions

Even though the article only presents a few of the concepts of border theories, this demonstrates first of all their diversity, their thematic and disciplinary spread and their differentiation. Secondly, it demonstrates two impressive paradigm shifts:

an optimistic perspective of a "world without borders" (or the "Europeanisation" of national borders, emphasising the redefining of borders,
the closure and growing securitisation that risks being perpetuated by the growing industrial and security complexes and its powerful lobbies and even more so by the crisis and the reconfiguration of territorial identities caused by globalisation.

The current state of border studies indicates that recent developments have profoundly modified the "power" of borders; they have modified the dialectical relationship between their fixed nature and their fluid and constantly changing regime and framed the impact borders have on human activities in a new way. Not only do borders have different meanings for the different actors, but they are a manifestation of the power relationships in society on different levels.

Key Messages

Border studies have become a wider and wider field of research. It is necessary to revisit the themes and concepts of border studies. This, in turn, requires cultural changes and new methods of working, hence the work on the defining of certain concepts.

Lead

Vladimir Kolossov et James Scott

Author of the entry

Perrine

Dethier

Links

http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/10532

Keywords

Border studies

border production

conceptual changes

social processes and institutions