Borderland

From Geography

"A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants." (Gloria Anzaldua, 1987, p 3)

The term borderland addresses the regions that surround international borders. These are places where power relations become particularly evident (Sparke, M., 2011, p 53) and where different cultures either mix or clash, creating a very (site-)specific political, spatial, cultural, economical and social situation. Which, refering to Soja, might be called a 'Third space'.

Most geographical studies on borderlands aim to create a discription of what could be called the everyday 'border-life': the daily practices, economic activities and cultural connections of people that live in borderlands, and that cross the borders of nations (see Sparke, M., idem).

Studying the Borderlands

"...borderlands provide usefully prismatic lenses on to the changing geography of power in the context of globalization."(Sparke, M., 2011, p 53)

The concept of borderlands is recently under the growing attention of (spatial) scientists and politicians, encouraged by the increasing governmental interest in cross-border regional planning. Within the range of researches and articles on borderlands, Sparke distinguishes two different interpretations of the concept-metaphor of borderlands:

- Borderlands as a refocusing concept, studying cross-border regional development.

- Borderlands as a "meaning remaking metaphor to disrupt normalizing notions of nation and the nation-state" (Sparke, M., idem).

Further reading

• Albert, M., Jacobson, D. & Lapid, Y. (Eds.), (2001), Identities, borders, orders. Rethinking International Relations Theory. University of Minnesota

References

• Anzaldúa, G., (1987) The Homeland, Aztlán. Borderlands/La Frontiera: the new mestiza.

• Sparke, M., (2011) Borderlands, in: The Dictionary of Human Geography, p 53

Contributors

• Page created by Isis Boot --IsisBoot 17:11, 8 October 2012 (CEST)