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).
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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)
