Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Antropological Society, 2020

Geopolitics, 2022

Can the border be considered an epistemological starting point for the analysis of border theories and processes? Whether we look at Rumford’s ‘Seeing like a border’, Mezzadra and Neilson’s ‘Border as Method’, or at Mignolo’s ‘Border thinking’, the answer seems to be a positive one. Similar in their way of employing a different gaze to look at and from the border, yet radically divergent in their methods and outcomes, each of these approaches has indeed provided a unique perspective on borders. However, I argue, a more critical analysis of such approaches reveals how they tend to (1) reproduce those epistemological distinctions that have cut across border studies in the past thirty years and (2) selectively consider some aspects in the analysis of borders, while omitting or overlooking others. All of them appear therefore necessary to grasp the multiplicity of processes, networks, and conflicts that produce and shape – while being simultaneously produced and shaped by – borders. Drawing from, yet critical towards these works, the article will take the border itself as a starting point of investigation, in order to (1) empirically analyse the processes, forces, and conflicts unfolding across borders and (2) analytically interrogate the various epistemological approaches with their advantages and shortcomings. The paper argues that borders should be better thought of as ‘meeting points’, i.e., places of encounter, interaction/clash, and reassessment/redefinition of different theories and processes. Conceiving borders as such, the paper concludes, can provide a more comprehensive framework for the analysis of borders, capable of looking at them not just as passive places moulded by different forces and encapsulated through conventional theoretical approaches, but as active, complex, and variegated processes capable of generating social outcomes and changes.

The current renewed interest in the study of borders and border-lands is paralleled by a growing concern and debate on the possibility of a border model, or models, and of a border theory, or theories. Certainly, there is a new attention to theoretical consideration and discussion that could help sharpen our understanding of borders. In this essay, I argue that a model or general framework is helpful for understanding borders, and I suggest a theory of borders. The seeds of my arguments are grounded in a variety of discussions and in the works of border scholars from a variety of social science disciplines. My contention is that the literature on borders, boundaries, frontiers, and borderland regions suggests four equally important analytical lenses: (1) market forces and trade flows, (2) policy activities of multiple levels of governments on adjacent borders, (3) the particular political clout of border-land communities, and (4) the specific culture of borderland communities. A model of border studies is presented in the second part of this essay, and I argue that these lenses provide a way of developing a model that delineates a constellation of variables along four dimensions.

The growing interdisciplinarity of border studies has moved discussion away from an exclusive concern with geographical, physical and tangible borders. Instead, contemporary research appears to privilege cultural, social, economic, religious and other borders that, while often invisible, have major impacts on the way in which human society is (re)ordered and compartmentalized. Similarly, the traditional dividing lines between the domestic and the international and between what it is “inside” and “outside” specific socio-spatial realms have been blurred. This has given way to understandings of borders embedded in new spatialities that challenge dichotomies typical to the territorial world of nation-states. Contemporary borders are mobile: they can be created, shifted, and deconstructed by a range of actors. With this essay the authors engage a central question that characterises contemporary debate, namely: how are formal (e.g. state) and informal (social) processes of border-making related to each other? Borders are constantly reproduced as a part of shifting space-society relationships and the bordering processes they entail. Two aspects of these will be dealt with here: 1) the evolving process of reconfiguring state borders in terms of territorial control, security and sovereignty and 2) the nexus between everyday life-worlds, power relations and constructions of social borders. Both of these processes reflect change and continuity in thinking about borders and they also raise a number of ethical questions that will be briefly discussed as well.

2017

Recognising the close interrelationships between social change and paradigm shifts, this article contributes to an interpretation of conceptual change in the study of borders. While borders continue to have considerable relevance today, we need to revisit them in light of their constantly changing historical, political, and social contexts, grasping their shifting and undetermined nature in space and time. The article underlines the multilevel complexity of borders – from the geopolitical to the level of social practice and cultural production at and across the border at different levels and, thus, not only along the dividing lines of nation-state sovereignties. It seeks to make a constructive contribution to debate within border studies by encouraging a productive understanding of the processual, de-territorialised, and dispersed nature of borders and their ensuring regimes in the era of globalisation and transnational flows, as well as showcasing border research as an interdiscipl...

Room 2.19 , 2019

This short essay explores the meaning of crossing borders in contemporary times. Borders are proliferating at a rapid rate, and paradoxically they are also being eroded at a rapid rate. This essay claims that this 'making and unmaking of borders' has a profound social impact, and is a central concern in our personal lives and in wider societal and political realms. The making and unmaking of borders produces fear, anxiety, security, liberation and emancipation depending on where you are in relation to the border. Dr Western explores borders utilising a psycho-social lens, revealing how we constantly have to cross and navigate borders, in the 'real world', digital and virtual world, and in our emotional worlds.

European Jnl of Social Theory, 2006

The renaissance of border studies during the past decade has been characterized by a crossing of disciplinary borders, bringing together geographers, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, literary scholars, legal experts, along with border practitioners engaged in the practical aspects of boundary demarcation, delimitation and management. This growth in border studies runs contrary to much of the globalization discourse which was prevalent during the late 1980s and early 1990s, positing a new 'borderless' world, in which the barrier impact of borders became insignificant. The article points to the common use of terminology which can create a shared border discourse among a diverse group of scholars, such as boundary demarcation, the nature of frontiers, borderlands and transition zones, and the ways in which borders are crossed. The article also discusses the reclosing of borders which is taking place as a result of 9/11 as part of the stated war against global terror.

2019

Borders and borderlands mutually define one another. The existence of the border constitutes the borderland. Whereas borders are important to demarcate the physical boundaries of state territories, they are in daily practice even more important to the people living along the borders. Most of these borderlands suffer neglects from the states that share these borders. This paper examines borders and borderlands and their importance in international relations. It argues that despite claims by globalization literature that transnational political and economic process are rendering borders obsolete, they remain highly relevant in international relations.

What do national borders mean today? Can they be effectively maintained in times of massive humanitarian crises and refugee influx? What do such mass movements imply both for the authority and sovereignty of states and how do they affect debates on national identity? This chapter debates these questions on a conceptual level.