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Borderlands
Borderlands D. Wastl-Walter, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Glossary Borderlands Physical locations or discursive spaces along historically developed political and material borders, where differences are constructed especially between nation-states, First and Third Worlds, and colonizer and colonized. Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) It aims to develop cross-border social and economic centers through common development strategies between adjacent regions within the European Union. Frontier A fraction of space that refers either to the political division between two countries or to a part of a country that lies at the limit of the settled area. Interreg An initiative started by the European Community, in 1989, that aims to stimulate interregional cooperation in the EU. NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement. Permeability of Borders It refers to the degree of their openness. International relations and treaties define this permeability. SAR Special Administrative Region An administrative division of the People’s Republic of China Administrative Region. There are currently two, Hong Kong and Macao. Schengen City in Luxembourg where the muchpublicized treaty abolishing systematic border controls between participating countries of the EU was signed. Territoriality It refers to the need of an individual, a social group, local economy, or state to claim authority over a segment of space. Territory It describes a socially constructed division of space that is controlled by some form of authority. A person, group, local economy, or state can occupy territories.
Borderlands are spaces where normative systems meet. This can mean that the border is a barrier, hindering and controlling cross-border activities and contacts, which has a clear impact on the adjacent borderlands. Borders can also function as bridges with the implication for the residents in the borderlands that they can benefit from the differences in the neighboring states and develop specific economic, social, and cultural cross-border activities. A special setting for such opportunities exists when there is an ethnic minority that speaks the language and is familiar with the culture of the other side. Borderlands are also functional spaces, where the asymmetries and differences between the neighboring
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states can be used for the benefit of at least one of the areas. Borderlands with permeable borders are used by the local population as an integrated region for their everyday activities where they choose freely between the two nations for specific purposes. In this way, they develop an identity as border people, which can be stronger and more persistent than national identities. Borders can function as barriers or bridges, and their function and meaning change over time. However, empirical research has demonstrated that even a change in the legal definition or function does not bring about an immediate change in people’s minds: In the collective memory of a population, the meanings of a border persist to such an extent that the population’s activities, especially interactions and perceptions of others, change very slowly. Over the years, the field of border studies has also undergone major changes, which are outlined briefly in the following section. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period marked by imperialism and World Wars I and II, the primary motivation of the first generation of border scholars was to delimit, allocate, and classify state borders according to their morphology, their natural features, origin, and history. In the 1960s, borders were still seen as lines of (natural) differentiation containing (natural) entities. This period was primarily influenced by Ladis Kristof ’s ‘The nature of frontiers and boundaries’ in Annals of American Geographers (1959), as well as by Julian Minghi’s classic review of boundaries studies in political geography, published in 1963 and by V. Prescott’s work on the geography of frontiers and boundaries, published in 1965. In the 1970s, the paradigm changed and border scholars discarded the conceptualization of borders as a given, natural phenomenon, replacing it with a conceptualization of borders as ‘artificial’, social and political constructs. This shift can be understood in the context of the politicization of ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ characteristics of borders influenced by Friedrich Ratzel during the first-half of the twentieth century. Since the 1980s, border studies have taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary character and have started to focus more on the postmodern ‘how’ perspective. The new multidisciplinary generation of border scholars has turned away from the rather stringent analysis and typology of the functions of boundary lines toward the study of both how borders influence the perceptions, relations, and (inter)actions of groups living in borderlands
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and how borders affect the evolution of territorial identities. International relations also affect borders, whose function is both defined by international treaties and dependent on central governments’ treaties with neighboring countries. However, most central governments are not situated in the borderlands, and this has a number of consequences. For example, most issues affecting people and their lives in borderlands such as cross-border relations, their local and regional economies, and borderland security are – even in highly federalized states – matters of foreign policy. Thus decisive matters are determined outside the borderland without considering the residents’ specific situation and needs thereby reducing the population’s influence. Borderland populations must adjust to (changing) border regimes and relations. These shifts impact inhabitants as they organize their spaces of (inter)action both on their own side of the border and across it. Most borderlands are considered peripheries within their states, characterized by geographical marginality, the limited presence of state institutions, large proportions of indigenous populations or ethnic minorities, and a weak socioeconomic structure. If they are also economically and politically oriented toward their state centers, it is referred to as a ‘back-to-back’ relation between the borderlands. In contrast, some borders that are open and easy to cross can function as bridges. Cross-border networks develop, and complementarity characterizes the relations. In such cases, people on both sides of the border share a mutual interest in working together – be it because of cultural ties or for economic reasons – which is termed a ‘face-to-face’ relation between borderlands. Worldwide, borderlands are usually asymmetrical and therefore complementary. This is the case in contexts where the development stage of two neighboring states and borderlands is quite similar, for example, between European Union (EU) member states. In other cases, however, when the asymmetries of wealth and living standards are pronounced, the results are often tight security measures, particularly to control and regulate migration. This occurs, for example, when the North meets the South, along the US–Mexican border, or around the Mediterranean, where Europe meets Africa. Nevertheless, even when borderlands differ with respect to economic or social standards, their standards tend to merge toward those of the more highly developed side, which means that the less-developed borderland usually develops rapidly, causing an eventual increase in disparities within the respective nation.
The Permeability of Borders Permeability, the degree of openness of borders, is of crucial importance for people living in borderlands. The
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twentieth century saw each type of border regime: closed, semipermeable, and permeable. Some border regimes even ceased to exist, at least in one certain respect, for example, in economic terms. In Europe, the Iron Curtain was experienced as an insurmountable barrier. Inhabitants on both sides of the border lived at dead ends, which meant that no contacts between them were possible, and the state hindered or tightly controlled crossing, which was only possible at specific border crossings. The Iron Curtain separated not only borderlands and century-long neighboring populations but also opposing political and economic systems. It symbolized the demarcation between the West and the East. This type of demarcation still exists in other parts of the world. In Korea, for example, contacts between people from North and South Korea (see Figure 1) are still nearly impossible. On the state level, tentative meetings have recently started to overcome the barriers. On the level of the local populations, however, it is unlikely that they will experience an opening of the tightborder regime in the near future. In other border contexts, control is strict and security tight, although borderlands have also become economically dynamic areas. The US–Mexican border is a case in point, because goods can easily be moved back and forth between the US and Mexico. The Border Industrialization Program (BIP), initialized by the Mexican government in 1965, has shaped this border landscape and its cross-border relations: Industrial plants (maquilas) built on the Mexican side of the border guaranteed both lower-cost assembly than on the US side and jobs for thousands of people living in the less-developed Mexican borderland. Today the well-developed Mexican borderland attracts migrant workers from the southern part of the country and Central America. However, the border regime specifically seeks to prevent the free movement of people from the South to the North, thereby ignoring cultural ties, social links, and economic dependence between the local populations, for example, in the twin cities Ambos Nogales in Arizona, USA, and Sonora, Mexico. In contrast to the impact of this strict border regime on cultural and economic ties, it is economic interdependence that affects the population living in and around Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish cities on the African side of the Straits of Gibraltar. Since the EU erected a high-security fence to demarcate the border between Spain and Morocco and to prevent South– North migration, the local populations can no longer interact or continue their traditional trading. Within Europe, discussions on borders as obstacles to the free movement of goods dominated national discourses for decades. Moreover, the perspective that borders are barriers to mutual understanding between nations resulted in the joint effort of several European states that has become known as ‘European integration’.
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Figure 1 South Korean wire entanglement and luminous advertising heading to North Korea on the southern limit of the demilitarized zone between the two Korean states.
Even when border regimes are tight, efforts are made to facilitate cooperation or at least peaceful coexistence between neighboring communities. In communist times as well, people on the Italian–Yugoslav border were allowed to cross the border with special permits to work on the other side. In the 1990s, the EU started programs to overcome barriers and differences in structures, to compensate for disadvantages pertaining to location and unequal development, and to design border regions that allow the local populations in the borderlands to improve economically and to interact culturally and socially. In Africa and other contexts, where borders were introduced without taking account of local and traditional situations, borderlands became sites of conflict in the twentieth century – either due to governmental questioning of the border, or state borders not coinciding with cultural borders. Although the asymmetry between the two sides there is also economically determined, it is more often determined by political circumstances that motivate people to flee one side of the border to seek a life of security and peace on the other side. In these borderlands, most people live in refugee camps. Finally, ecological problems, which do not stop at national borders, very often challenge tight border regimes and borderlands. Borderlands thus face a double burden: A population may face ecological problems produced across the border and then not have access to the required financial and logistical resources to handle these problems effectively. There are few examples where adjacent borderlands have agreed to cooperate in case of ecological catastrophe, and where adjustments to laws have been made on the national level to equalize ecological standards (Figure 2). In most cases, borderlands
are the most directly affected, yet least supported areas within states.
The Dependency of Borderlands on Binational Relations Central governments usually oversee borderlands, which means that border-related issues are considered a matter of foreign affairs. Several exceptions, however, such as the Italian Trent-South Tyrol region, enjoy a certain degree of autonomy. Even though borderland populations are those who deal with their neighbors on a daily basis, they usually have few or no rights to decide on issues such as border crossing opening hours, number of border crossings, joint economic projects, and common efforts to overcome ecological challenges. As a result, the freedom of action of these populations is not only highly dependent on their political status within their states but also on the political relations and interdependencies between their own and the neighboring country. To consider this dependency in more depth, the province Vojvodina in Yugoslavia provides an interesting example. The Vojvodina was integrated into the Hungarian region of the Austrian–Hungarian Empire until 1918. It became part of Yugoslavia after the end of World War I, making the Hungarian population a minority within the newly formed state. However, the population has always been multiethnic; today up to 29 different ethnic groups live there. In the 2002 census, about 300 000 inhabitants referred to themselves as Hungarian out of a population of about two million. Hungarians in the Vojvodina have historically kept their close ties to Hungary and they have been guaranteed distinct rights.
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Figure 2 Modern US border barrier with concrete columns in the San Diego section, allowing small animals to pass.
Even in communist times, both central governments agreed to support the Hungarian minority: Hungarians in Yugoslavia had a special passport, only valid for the border district, which allowed them to keep in contact with their families. After 1989, residents could cross the border between Hungary and Yugoslavia without a visa, making Hungary a gateway to Europe also for ethnic Serbs and others. This changed in 2008 when Hungary joined the Schengen group, because crossing the border is now only allowed with a Schengen visa. Only Hungarians living in the Vojvodina are able to cross, based on a ‘national visa’ valid for 90 days, which has been issued by Hungary since January 2006. Binational relations, and increasingly international agreements, not only affect minorities living in borderlands but also and specifically the overall economic situation. Most borderlands are marginalized within their states and thus rely on, for instance, shoppers from across the border or the possibility to work on the other side. In some contexts, this interdependency guarantees a minimum income and in others, even results in economic boom. Ambos Nogales, twin cities straddling the US– Mexican border, offers one example of economic interdependency. In other borderlands, particularly in Europe, for example, between Poland and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Germany, and in the three-border area Germany–France–Switzerland (Regio Basiliensis), the population depends on its neighboring borderland(s). Residents commute back and forth, working on one side and living on the other, and borderlands like the Regio Basiliensis have a well-developed and long tradition of interaction. However, all these areas are affected by decisions made at the national level and how relations between the nations develop.
Recently, it has been the EU that has strongly impacted the development of cross-border relations. Taking the case of the Polish–Ukrainian borderland, it benefited from the open border for only a short period. When Poland moved politically closer to and finally joined the EU, the border regime tightened and local cross-border interaction again became restricted. In Europe, relations between states are more or less free of friction, and international treaties and binational agreements that also consider the interests of borderlands regulate binational relations. There are, however, other contexts like the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa where problems and conflicts – including military disputes – between states are specifically anchored in borderlands. The most extreme consequence is the militarization of a borderland, through which its population faces restrictions in its everyday activities and experiences the border as a clear demarcation line. Kashmir Region is a case in point. The total population of the three parts controlled by India (Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh) amounts to slightly more than nine million people. About three million people live in the Pakistani parts (Azad-Kashmir and Northern Areas); the third part is Aksai Chin, occupied by China. When India became independent in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir, one of the princely states of India, had the option of joining either India or Pakistan. The majority of the population was Muslim; in the Valley of Kashmir, this proportion reached more than 95%. Military disputes were followed by the UN effort to mediate a truce that finally resulted in the partition of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation has not stabilized since; two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, meet at the checkpoint, which the Indian side wants to transform into a permanent international border. Kashmiris themselves argue
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that Pakistan and India are interested solely in the geopolitical role of Jammu and Kashmir, not in its population and development.
Borderlands as Normative Spaces Borderlands are territories that are subordinated to a certain national regime and are therefore subject to the norms of its specific political system. Hence along a border, two extremely different political systems may meet if subjected to extremely different political norms. This is best illustrated through the example mentioned above of North and South Korea. However, in numerous cases borderlands are also zones of cultural overlap where national identities (or a people’s self-concept) become blurred in the population. This blurring of identity occurs for reasons of proximity and history: Different peoples live in each other’s vicinity and borders are highly dynamic, shifting over the course of history. On the Italian side of the Italian–Austrian border, elderly people may have lived in different states with different norms and values over the course of their lifetimes. They became used to learning and speaking different languages, holding different passports, and continuing to find themselves in different neighborhoods. These people and their descendants, like those living in the Vojvodina, may have a clear concept not of their territorial belonging and national identity, but rather of their regional belonging and identity. Thus, these people often have a normative knowledge of both sides. In many borderlands, political regimes deliberately or unwittingly exercise influence on the other side of the border. Along the US–Mexican border, norms and standards in addition to cultural values are transferred across the border. Companies in the Mexican borderland frequently orient themselves toward US corporate governance principles. In other contexts, cooperation between organizations is possible only if one partner adapts to the norms of the other. In the Dutch–German borderlands, companies can decide whether they want to adapt to German or Dutch laws, regardless of which nation they are located in. Moreover, within the EU, political, social, and economic norms are actively propagated within and across EU boundaries through a variety of different programs initiated in the late 1980s. In 1989, the EU started to fund Interreg cross-border cooperation (CBC) projects with the aim of assisting adjacent regions on the internal and external borders of the EU. The initiative’s purpose was to form partnerships in order to work together on common projects designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion throughout the EU. With the launching of the ‘Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring Their Economies’ (PHARE) program in 1989, the EU went beyond its boundaries by beginning to exert political and economic influence on
Central and Eastern European Countries. The aim of the PHARE program was to assist applicant countries in their preparations for joining the EU. It was replaced by the program ‘Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization’ (CARDS) in 2001. These examples thus demonstrate that political systems have a major influence on borderlands and their populations. Such influence is persistent in the collective memory of borderland populations and in business interactions and can, in certain cases, even manifest itself in the landscape. Finally, values and norms are represented in borderlands through practices and a range of ways in which the material world is organized. One illustration is the militarization of the border and distinctive checkpoint procedures, as along the US–Mexican border. A second is the frequent location of camps for asylum seekers in borderlands. Another is the type of special agreement that allows police to cross the border when a crime has been committed. While in Europe the border landscape has changed dramatically, in other contexts, national power and norms are manifested at the border and in the borderlands through, for instance, checkpoints, signs with warnings, and the presence of an army.
Borderlands as Functional Spaces Borderlands are not always marginal or peripheral areas that are poorly developed with bleak economic perspectives. They can also be places that function dynamically, with a high density of shopping centers and industrial production facilities resulting in job opportunities for locals and migrants. Further, borderlands are frequently characterized by a high degree of interdependency among regions within their own country and even more frequently with their neighboring borderlands. In China, the ‘special administrative regions’ (SARs) (Figure 3) on the internal Chinese border between Mainland China and both Hong Kong and Macao again demonstrates how state policies determine the permeability of borders and the economic dynamics. The city of Shenzhen, which has today about 12 million inhabitants, was built up as a ‘special economic zone’ with regard to the neighboring city Hong Kong within the last 27 years. Along the US–Mexican border, maquilas – usually situated on the Mexican side – attract people from peripheral areas of Mexico. Such factories take advantage of, for example, low labor costs and lower environmental standards. This idea of relocating the assembly process from one side of the border to another is not unique to the US–Mexican context. The area around Bratislava, Slovakia, adjacent to Austria, has become an attractive partner for selected European car manufacturers. Even when Slovakia became a member of the EU, it maintained its booming character. The Regio Basiliensis, referred to previously, is primarily a functional space based
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on a common interest to support the various bordercrossing activities of company owners and employees. Today, the Regio Basiliensis constitutes a highly integrated space, particularly in functional terms. Elsewhere as well, inhabitants live on one side of the border and work on the other, commuting back and forth as part of their daily routine. However, economic activity alone does not produce a functional space. An exchange of know-how between local authorities, the joint use of technical and educational infrastructure, and common environmental efforts are also required. The borderlands around Lake Constance (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) have agreed on common ecological standards to protect the lake from pollution, thus promoting the border region as a single integrated tourist region. In Frankfurt (Oder) and Slubice on the German–Polish border, the University of Viadrina on the German side and the Collegium Polonicum on the Polish side were conceptualized as an integrated center for higher education. In other contexts, agreements have been signed to allow the fire brigade to cross the border in case of emergency and to give healthcenter access to people from both borderlands. Agreements have also been signed for the joint use of technical infrastructure such as sewage plants, highway corridors, and special facilities for trucks.
Borderlands as Everyday Spaces Above, borderlands were discussed primarily as crossborder spaces, because the (inter)dependency between
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both sides of the border is usually very high, which is also true in everyday life. In borderlands, distinct everyday (inter)action spaces can be observed. The population copes with its given realities, which are greatly determined by a number of factors: binational relations, national border policies, the overall economic situation, cultural conditions, and personal experience. Everyday spaces in borderlands expand to become cross-border spaces if the border regimes are sufficiently open. Everyday spaces may also be understood as social, overlapping political and functional spaces. These spaces are continuously produced and reproduced in single actions, networks, and carrying out projects, thus ignoring state borders. Social spaces are relational, that is, they are produced and exist for as long as people interact with each other. They do not constitute clear demarcations or barriers inscribed in space, although political borders may be considered clear barriers. Social spaces mirror social and cultural links as well as economic dependencies. This has best been portrayed in Ambos Nogales on the US–Mexican border, where people on both sides of the border are socially integrated. There, people have clearly constituted social spaces and experience living across ‘the line’. Even after 9/11, when border enforcement tightened, their understanding of interactions and their production of (social) spaces did not change. They commute back and forth to shop, meet friends and family, and use the entertainment facilities on the Mexican side of the border. Along the Finnish– Swedish border, functional and everyday spaces are to
Figure 3 Border crossing station of the new western corridor between Mainland China (Shenzhen) and Hong Kong with co-located checkpoints on reclaimed land. This fourth crossing point with a capacity of about 60 000 vehicles and passengers per day was opened on 1 July 2007.
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some extent highly integrated. Residents create a single integrated borderland in the course of their daily activities; they do not reflect on territorial distinctions as they go about shopping on one side and meeting friends on the other. However, in everyday spaces, the two populations also interact with each other. If these interactions are considered social space, then the construction of ‘we’ and ‘the other’ requires discussion. It is primarily the border itself that demarcates two distinct settings and populations. The populations in adjacent borderlands live in different national contexts with diverse norms, values, and standards, which may affect everyday activities and allow each population to highlight the differences between itself and the neighboring population. Furthermore, borderland populations may also distinguish themselves from those in the rest of their country. In their special situation, inhabitants have developed an understanding of their area and neighbors; they assume parallels in understanding and perspective and express less interest in their respective central governments.
Borderlands and Border Identities History and the collective memory of a population are sometimes stronger reference points in the construction of identity than regulations and restrictions. Above, the regional identity of the Austrian–Italian borderland population was highlighted. While the border and with it the political regime changed several times over the past century, the population continued to identify with local customs and was also able to protect their local dialects and customs. A similar situation prevailed in Lwiw (Lemberg; Lwow), a city in the central part of western Ukraine that was part of the Austrian–Hungarian Empire in the nineteenth century. Those born there at the beginning of the twentieth century experienced various regimes. They were Austrians before World War I and became Poles afterward. The city was occupied by the Soviets in 1939, by the German army in 1941, and from 1944 until 1991, it was under Soviet control again. Since 1991, it has been the largest city in western Ukraine. Today, most inhabitants speak Ukrainian in Lwiw, while in Kiev the inhabitants speak Russian. A walk through the city provides an experience of these changing political and cultural influences, which have been codified in street names and signs and architecture as well as in less material forms such as poems and narratives. Although it was strictly forbidden in Soviet times to speak German and Polish and to refer to their eras, the language and customs from both traditions have still survived and flourished. As in Ambos Nogales, such populations develop a regional identity as ‘border people’, which can be stronger than the changing national identities.
Current Research Issues Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed an exponential growth of border studies, predominantly in Europe and North America. The enlargement of the EU in 2005 brought about a change in the meaning and permeability of the Union’s internal and external borders, while 9/11 resulted in putting the meaning of the outer borders of the US into a new geopolitical framework. In Europe, borders have been an even greater source of discussion since the enlargement of the Schengen space in 2008, which means a larger internally ‘borderless’ Europe with the new member states enforcing the outer borders of ‘fortress Europe’. This has led to critical discussion in the previous member states and needs more research on the new neighborhoods. In Africa, borderlands are under tremendous pressure by the great numbers of refugees, who flee as a result of civil war or environmental dangers. Here, not much research has been undertaken yet, so we are in need of a greater understanding of the processes of inclusion and exclusion in borderlands. Another challenge for borderlands is ongoing climatic and environmental change, which involves the entire planet, regardless of borders. Nevertheless, state responses in the form of regulations will differ along the borders, thus creating substantially different economic environments. In addition, both the special restrictions and potential advantages of borderlands are being researched. A partial list of research issues includes the constant confrontation between regional and national identities and the subsequent questioning of the nation-state and its norms; the level of development as a function of national law, international relations, and asymmetries; borderlands as both lived and perceived spaces; and borderlands as socially and discursively constructed regions. See also: Citizenship; Cold War; Economies, Borderland; Ethnic Conflict; Geopolitics and Religion; Hegemony; Nation; Political Boundaries; Regionalism; State; Territory and Territoriality.
Further Reading Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute. Kolossov, V. (2005). Border studies: Changing perspectives and theoretical approaches. Geopolitics 10, 606--632. Kristof, L. (1959). The nature of frontiers and boundaries. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 49, 269--282. Martinez, O. J. (1994). Border People. Life and Society in the US–Mexico Borderlands. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Mattingly, D. J. and Hansen, E. (2006). Women and Change at the US– Mexico Border. Mobility, Labor and Activism. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
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Minghi, J. (1963). Boundary studies in political geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 53, 407--428. Newman, D. (2002). Boundaries. In Agnew, J., Mitchell, K. & Toal, G. (eds.) A Companion to Political Geography, pp 123--137. Oxford: Blackwell. Newman, D. and Agnew, J. (eds.). Geopolitics. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis Group LLC. Newman, D. (2006). The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our ‘borderless’ world. Progress in Human Geography 2, 143--161. Paasi, A. (1996). Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness: The Changing Geographies of the Finnish–Russian Border. New York: Wiley. Paasi, A. (2005). Generations and the ‘development’ of border studies. Geopolitics 10, 663--671. Patrick, M. J., Van Houtum, H. and van der Velde, M. (eds.) Journal of Borderland Studies. Prescott, J. R. V. (1965). The Geography of Frontiers and Boundaries. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company. Van Houtum, H. (2005). The geopolitics of borders and boundaries. Geopolitics 10, 672--679. Wastl-Walter, D. (ed.) (2009). Research Companion to Border Studies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Werlen, B. (1997). Sozialgeographie Allta¨glicher Regionalisierungen. Band 2 Globalisierung, Region und Regionalisierung. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
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Relevant Websites http://www.aebr.net Association of European Border Regions. http://www.ccbres.sdsu.edu California Center for Border and Regional Economic Studies, San Diego State University, California. http://www.crossborder.ie Centre for Cross Border Studies, Amargh, Northern Ireland. http://www.qub.ac.uk Centre for International Border Research (CIBR), Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. http://www.nmsu.edu Center for Latin American Border Studies, New Mexico State University. http://www.ifg.dk Danish Institute of Border Region Studies, Aabenraa, Denmark. http://www.dur.ac.uk International Boundaries Research Unit, University of Durham, UK. www.kun.nl Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. http://www.ctc.ee Peipsi Centre for Transboundary Cooperation, Tartu, Estonia. http://www.sandiego.edu Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, California.
Glossary Borderlands Physical locations or discursive spaces along historically developed political and material borders, where differences are constructed especially between nation-states, First and Third Worlds, and colonizer and colonized. Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) It aims to develop cross-border social and economic centers through common development strategies between adjacent regions within the European Union. Frontier A fraction of space that refers either to the political division between two countries or to a part of a country that lies at the limit of the settled area. Interreg An initiative started by the European Community, in 1989, that aims to stimulate interregional cooperation in the EU. NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement. Permeability of Borders It refers to the degree of their openness. International relations and treaties define this permeability. SAR Special Administrative Region An administrative division of the People’s Republic of China Administrative Region. There are currently two, Hong Kong and Macao. Schengen City in Luxembourg where the muchpublicized treaty abolishing systematic border controls between participating countries of the EU was signed. Territoriality It refers to the need of an individual, a social group, local economy, or state to claim authority over a segment of space. Territory It describes a socially constructed division of space that is controlled by some form of authority. A person, group, local economy, or state can occupy territories.
Borderlands are spaces where normative systems meet. This can mean that the border is a barrier, hindering and controlling cross-border activities and contacts, which has a clear impact on the adjacent borderlands. Borders can also function as bridges with the implication for the residents in the borderlands that they can benefit from the differences in the neighboring states and develop specific economic, social, and cultural cross-border activities. A special setting for such opportunities exists when there is an ethnic minority that speaks the language and is familiar with the culture of the other side. Borderlands are also functional spaces, where the asymmetries and differences between the neighboring
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states can be used for the benefit of at least one of the areas. Borderlands with permeable borders are used by the local population as an integrated region for their everyday activities where they choose freely between the two nations for specific purposes. In this way, they develop an identity as border people, which can be stronger and more persistent than national identities. Borders can function as barriers or bridges, and their function and meaning change over time. However, empirical research has demonstrated that even a change in the legal definition or function does not bring about an immediate change in people’s minds: In the collective memory of a population, the meanings of a border persist to such an extent that the population’s activities, especially interactions and perceptions of others, change very slowly. Over the years, the field of border studies has also undergone major changes, which are outlined briefly in the following section. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period marked by imperialism and World Wars I and II, the primary motivation of the first generation of border scholars was to delimit, allocate, and classify state borders according to their morphology, their natural features, origin, and history. In the 1960s, borders were still seen as lines of (natural) differentiation containing (natural) entities. This period was primarily influenced by Ladis Kristof ’s ‘The nature of frontiers and boundaries’ in Annals of American Geographers (1959), as well as by Julian Minghi’s classic review of boundaries studies in political geography, published in 1963 and by V. Prescott’s work on the geography of frontiers and boundaries, published in 1965. In the 1970s, the paradigm changed and border scholars discarded the conceptualization of borders as a given, natural phenomenon, replacing it with a conceptualization of borders as ‘artificial’, social and political constructs. This shift can be understood in the context of the politicization of ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ characteristics of borders influenced by Friedrich Ratzel during the first-half of the twentieth century. Since the 1980s, border studies have taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary character and have started to focus more on the postmodern ‘how’ perspective. The new multidisciplinary generation of border scholars has turned away from the rather stringent analysis and typology of the functions of boundary lines toward the study of both how borders influence the perceptions, relations, and (inter)actions of groups living in borderlands
Borderlands
and how borders affect the evolution of territorial identities. International relations also affect borders, whose function is both defined by international treaties and dependent on central governments’ treaties with neighboring countries. However, most central governments are not situated in the borderlands, and this has a number of consequences. For example, most issues affecting people and their lives in borderlands such as cross-border relations, their local and regional economies, and borderland security are – even in highly federalized states – matters of foreign policy. Thus decisive matters are determined outside the borderland without considering the residents’ specific situation and needs thereby reducing the population’s influence. Borderland populations must adjust to (changing) border regimes and relations. These shifts impact inhabitants as they organize their spaces of (inter)action both on their own side of the border and across it. Most borderlands are considered peripheries within their states, characterized by geographical marginality, the limited presence of state institutions, large proportions of indigenous populations or ethnic minorities, and a weak socioeconomic structure. If they are also economically and politically oriented toward their state centers, it is referred to as a ‘back-to-back’ relation between the borderlands. In contrast, some borders that are open and easy to cross can function as bridges. Cross-border networks develop, and complementarity characterizes the relations. In such cases, people on both sides of the border share a mutual interest in working together – be it because of cultural ties or for economic reasons – which is termed a ‘face-to-face’ relation between borderlands. Worldwide, borderlands are usually asymmetrical and therefore complementary. This is the case in contexts where the development stage of two neighboring states and borderlands is quite similar, for example, between European Union (EU) member states. In other cases, however, when the asymmetries of wealth and living standards are pronounced, the results are often tight security measures, particularly to control and regulate migration. This occurs, for example, when the North meets the South, along the US–Mexican border, or around the Mediterranean, where Europe meets Africa. Nevertheless, even when borderlands differ with respect to economic or social standards, their standards tend to merge toward those of the more highly developed side, which means that the less-developed borderland usually develops rapidly, causing an eventual increase in disparities within the respective nation.
The Permeability of Borders Permeability, the degree of openness of borders, is of crucial importance for people living in borderlands. The
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twentieth century saw each type of border regime: closed, semipermeable, and permeable. Some border regimes even ceased to exist, at least in one certain respect, for example, in economic terms. In Europe, the Iron Curtain was experienced as an insurmountable barrier. Inhabitants on both sides of the border lived at dead ends, which meant that no contacts between them were possible, and the state hindered or tightly controlled crossing, which was only possible at specific border crossings. The Iron Curtain separated not only borderlands and century-long neighboring populations but also opposing political and economic systems. It symbolized the demarcation between the West and the East. This type of demarcation still exists in other parts of the world. In Korea, for example, contacts between people from North and South Korea (see Figure 1) are still nearly impossible. On the state level, tentative meetings have recently started to overcome the barriers. On the level of the local populations, however, it is unlikely that they will experience an opening of the tightborder regime in the near future. In other border contexts, control is strict and security tight, although borderlands have also become economically dynamic areas. The US–Mexican border is a case in point, because goods can easily be moved back and forth between the US and Mexico. The Border Industrialization Program (BIP), initialized by the Mexican government in 1965, has shaped this border landscape and its cross-border relations: Industrial plants (maquilas) built on the Mexican side of the border guaranteed both lower-cost assembly than on the US side and jobs for thousands of people living in the less-developed Mexican borderland. Today the well-developed Mexican borderland attracts migrant workers from the southern part of the country and Central America. However, the border regime specifically seeks to prevent the free movement of people from the South to the North, thereby ignoring cultural ties, social links, and economic dependence between the local populations, for example, in the twin cities Ambos Nogales in Arizona, USA, and Sonora, Mexico. In contrast to the impact of this strict border regime on cultural and economic ties, it is economic interdependence that affects the population living in and around Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish cities on the African side of the Straits of Gibraltar. Since the EU erected a high-security fence to demarcate the border between Spain and Morocco and to prevent South– North migration, the local populations can no longer interact or continue their traditional trading. Within Europe, discussions on borders as obstacles to the free movement of goods dominated national discourses for decades. Moreover, the perspective that borders are barriers to mutual understanding between nations resulted in the joint effort of several European states that has become known as ‘European integration’.
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Figure 1 South Korean wire entanglement and luminous advertising heading to North Korea on the southern limit of the demilitarized zone between the two Korean states.
Even when border regimes are tight, efforts are made to facilitate cooperation or at least peaceful coexistence between neighboring communities. In communist times as well, people on the Italian–Yugoslav border were allowed to cross the border with special permits to work on the other side. In the 1990s, the EU started programs to overcome barriers and differences in structures, to compensate for disadvantages pertaining to location and unequal development, and to design border regions that allow the local populations in the borderlands to improve economically and to interact culturally and socially. In Africa and other contexts, where borders were introduced without taking account of local and traditional situations, borderlands became sites of conflict in the twentieth century – either due to governmental questioning of the border, or state borders not coinciding with cultural borders. Although the asymmetry between the two sides there is also economically determined, it is more often determined by political circumstances that motivate people to flee one side of the border to seek a life of security and peace on the other side. In these borderlands, most people live in refugee camps. Finally, ecological problems, which do not stop at national borders, very often challenge tight border regimes and borderlands. Borderlands thus face a double burden: A population may face ecological problems produced across the border and then not have access to the required financial and logistical resources to handle these problems effectively. There are few examples where adjacent borderlands have agreed to cooperate in case of ecological catastrophe, and where adjustments to laws have been made on the national level to equalize ecological standards (Figure 2). In most cases, borderlands
are the most directly affected, yet least supported areas within states.
The Dependency of Borderlands on Binational Relations Central governments usually oversee borderlands, which means that border-related issues are considered a matter of foreign affairs. Several exceptions, however, such as the Italian Trent-South Tyrol region, enjoy a certain degree of autonomy. Even though borderland populations are those who deal with their neighbors on a daily basis, they usually have few or no rights to decide on issues such as border crossing opening hours, number of border crossings, joint economic projects, and common efforts to overcome ecological challenges. As a result, the freedom of action of these populations is not only highly dependent on their political status within their states but also on the political relations and interdependencies between their own and the neighboring country. To consider this dependency in more depth, the province Vojvodina in Yugoslavia provides an interesting example. The Vojvodina was integrated into the Hungarian region of the Austrian–Hungarian Empire until 1918. It became part of Yugoslavia after the end of World War I, making the Hungarian population a minority within the newly formed state. However, the population has always been multiethnic; today up to 29 different ethnic groups live there. In the 2002 census, about 300 000 inhabitants referred to themselves as Hungarian out of a population of about two million. Hungarians in the Vojvodina have historically kept their close ties to Hungary and they have been guaranteed distinct rights.
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Figure 2 Modern US border barrier with concrete columns in the San Diego section, allowing small animals to pass.
Even in communist times, both central governments agreed to support the Hungarian minority: Hungarians in Yugoslavia had a special passport, only valid for the border district, which allowed them to keep in contact with their families. After 1989, residents could cross the border between Hungary and Yugoslavia without a visa, making Hungary a gateway to Europe also for ethnic Serbs and others. This changed in 2008 when Hungary joined the Schengen group, because crossing the border is now only allowed with a Schengen visa. Only Hungarians living in the Vojvodina are able to cross, based on a ‘national visa’ valid for 90 days, which has been issued by Hungary since January 2006. Binational relations, and increasingly international agreements, not only affect minorities living in borderlands but also and specifically the overall economic situation. Most borderlands are marginalized within their states and thus rely on, for instance, shoppers from across the border or the possibility to work on the other side. In some contexts, this interdependency guarantees a minimum income and in others, even results in economic boom. Ambos Nogales, twin cities straddling the US– Mexican border, offers one example of economic interdependency. In other borderlands, particularly in Europe, for example, between Poland and Ukraine, the Netherlands and Germany, and in the three-border area Germany–France–Switzerland (Regio Basiliensis), the population depends on its neighboring borderland(s). Residents commute back and forth, working on one side and living on the other, and borderlands like the Regio Basiliensis have a well-developed and long tradition of interaction. However, all these areas are affected by decisions made at the national level and how relations between the nations develop.
Recently, it has been the EU that has strongly impacted the development of cross-border relations. Taking the case of the Polish–Ukrainian borderland, it benefited from the open border for only a short period. When Poland moved politically closer to and finally joined the EU, the border regime tightened and local cross-border interaction again became restricted. In Europe, relations between states are more or less free of friction, and international treaties and binational agreements that also consider the interests of borderlands regulate binational relations. There are, however, other contexts like the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa where problems and conflicts – including military disputes – between states are specifically anchored in borderlands. The most extreme consequence is the militarization of a borderland, through which its population faces restrictions in its everyday activities and experiences the border as a clear demarcation line. Kashmir Region is a case in point. The total population of the three parts controlled by India (Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh) amounts to slightly more than nine million people. About three million people live in the Pakistani parts (Azad-Kashmir and Northern Areas); the third part is Aksai Chin, occupied by China. When India became independent in 1947, Jammu and Kashmir, one of the princely states of India, had the option of joining either India or Pakistan. The majority of the population was Muslim; in the Valley of Kashmir, this proportion reached more than 95%. Military disputes were followed by the UN effort to mediate a truce that finally resulted in the partition of Jammu and Kashmir. The situation has not stabilized since; two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, meet at the checkpoint, which the Indian side wants to transform into a permanent international border. Kashmiris themselves argue
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that Pakistan and India are interested solely in the geopolitical role of Jammu and Kashmir, not in its population and development.
Borderlands as Normative Spaces Borderlands are territories that are subordinated to a certain national regime and are therefore subject to the norms of its specific political system. Hence along a border, two extremely different political systems may meet if subjected to extremely different political norms. This is best illustrated through the example mentioned above of North and South Korea. However, in numerous cases borderlands are also zones of cultural overlap where national identities (or a people’s self-concept) become blurred in the population. This blurring of identity occurs for reasons of proximity and history: Different peoples live in each other’s vicinity and borders are highly dynamic, shifting over the course of history. On the Italian side of the Italian–Austrian border, elderly people may have lived in different states with different norms and values over the course of their lifetimes. They became used to learning and speaking different languages, holding different passports, and continuing to find themselves in different neighborhoods. These people and their descendants, like those living in the Vojvodina, may have a clear concept not of their territorial belonging and national identity, but rather of their regional belonging and identity. Thus, these people often have a normative knowledge of both sides. In many borderlands, political regimes deliberately or unwittingly exercise influence on the other side of the border. Along the US–Mexican border, norms and standards in addition to cultural values are transferred across the border. Companies in the Mexican borderland frequently orient themselves toward US corporate governance principles. In other contexts, cooperation between organizations is possible only if one partner adapts to the norms of the other. In the Dutch–German borderlands, companies can decide whether they want to adapt to German or Dutch laws, regardless of which nation they are located in. Moreover, within the EU, political, social, and economic norms are actively propagated within and across EU boundaries through a variety of different programs initiated in the late 1980s. In 1989, the EU started to fund Interreg cross-border cooperation (CBC) projects with the aim of assisting adjacent regions on the internal and external borders of the EU. The initiative’s purpose was to form partnerships in order to work together on common projects designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion throughout the EU. With the launching of the ‘Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring Their Economies’ (PHARE) program in 1989, the EU went beyond its boundaries by beginning to exert political and economic influence on
Central and Eastern European Countries. The aim of the PHARE program was to assist applicant countries in their preparations for joining the EU. It was replaced by the program ‘Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization’ (CARDS) in 2001. These examples thus demonstrate that political systems have a major influence on borderlands and their populations. Such influence is persistent in the collective memory of borderland populations and in business interactions and can, in certain cases, even manifest itself in the landscape. Finally, values and norms are represented in borderlands through practices and a range of ways in which the material world is organized. One illustration is the militarization of the border and distinctive checkpoint procedures, as along the US–Mexican border. A second is the frequent location of camps for asylum seekers in borderlands. Another is the type of special agreement that allows police to cross the border when a crime has been committed. While in Europe the border landscape has changed dramatically, in other contexts, national power and norms are manifested at the border and in the borderlands through, for instance, checkpoints, signs with warnings, and the presence of an army.
Borderlands as Functional Spaces Borderlands are not always marginal or peripheral areas that are poorly developed with bleak economic perspectives. They can also be places that function dynamically, with a high density of shopping centers and industrial production facilities resulting in job opportunities for locals and migrants. Further, borderlands are frequently characterized by a high degree of interdependency among regions within their own country and even more frequently with their neighboring borderlands. In China, the ‘special administrative regions’ (SARs) (Figure 3) on the internal Chinese border between Mainland China and both Hong Kong and Macao again demonstrates how state policies determine the permeability of borders and the economic dynamics. The city of Shenzhen, which has today about 12 million inhabitants, was built up as a ‘special economic zone’ with regard to the neighboring city Hong Kong within the last 27 years. Along the US–Mexican border, maquilas – usually situated on the Mexican side – attract people from peripheral areas of Mexico. Such factories take advantage of, for example, low labor costs and lower environmental standards. This idea of relocating the assembly process from one side of the border to another is not unique to the US–Mexican context. The area around Bratislava, Slovakia, adjacent to Austria, has become an attractive partner for selected European car manufacturers. Even when Slovakia became a member of the EU, it maintained its booming character. The Regio Basiliensis, referred to previously, is primarily a functional space based
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on a common interest to support the various bordercrossing activities of company owners and employees. Today, the Regio Basiliensis constitutes a highly integrated space, particularly in functional terms. Elsewhere as well, inhabitants live on one side of the border and work on the other, commuting back and forth as part of their daily routine. However, economic activity alone does not produce a functional space. An exchange of know-how between local authorities, the joint use of technical and educational infrastructure, and common environmental efforts are also required. The borderlands around Lake Constance (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) have agreed on common ecological standards to protect the lake from pollution, thus promoting the border region as a single integrated tourist region. In Frankfurt (Oder) and Slubice on the German–Polish border, the University of Viadrina on the German side and the Collegium Polonicum on the Polish side were conceptualized as an integrated center for higher education. In other contexts, agreements have been signed to allow the fire brigade to cross the border in case of emergency and to give healthcenter access to people from both borderlands. Agreements have also been signed for the joint use of technical infrastructure such as sewage plants, highway corridors, and special facilities for trucks.
Borderlands as Everyday Spaces Above, borderlands were discussed primarily as crossborder spaces, because the (inter)dependency between
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both sides of the border is usually very high, which is also true in everyday life. In borderlands, distinct everyday (inter)action spaces can be observed. The population copes with its given realities, which are greatly determined by a number of factors: binational relations, national border policies, the overall economic situation, cultural conditions, and personal experience. Everyday spaces in borderlands expand to become cross-border spaces if the border regimes are sufficiently open. Everyday spaces may also be understood as social, overlapping political and functional spaces. These spaces are continuously produced and reproduced in single actions, networks, and carrying out projects, thus ignoring state borders. Social spaces are relational, that is, they are produced and exist for as long as people interact with each other. They do not constitute clear demarcations or barriers inscribed in space, although political borders may be considered clear barriers. Social spaces mirror social and cultural links as well as economic dependencies. This has best been portrayed in Ambos Nogales on the US–Mexican border, where people on both sides of the border are socially integrated. There, people have clearly constituted social spaces and experience living across ‘the line’. Even after 9/11, when border enforcement tightened, their understanding of interactions and their production of (social) spaces did not change. They commute back and forth to shop, meet friends and family, and use the entertainment facilities on the Mexican side of the border. Along the Finnish– Swedish border, functional and everyday spaces are to
Figure 3 Border crossing station of the new western corridor between Mainland China (Shenzhen) and Hong Kong with co-located checkpoints on reclaimed land. This fourth crossing point with a capacity of about 60 000 vehicles and passengers per day was opened on 1 July 2007.
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some extent highly integrated. Residents create a single integrated borderland in the course of their daily activities; they do not reflect on territorial distinctions as they go about shopping on one side and meeting friends on the other. However, in everyday spaces, the two populations also interact with each other. If these interactions are considered social space, then the construction of ‘we’ and ‘the other’ requires discussion. It is primarily the border itself that demarcates two distinct settings and populations. The populations in adjacent borderlands live in different national contexts with diverse norms, values, and standards, which may affect everyday activities and allow each population to highlight the differences between itself and the neighboring population. Furthermore, borderland populations may also distinguish themselves from those in the rest of their country. In their special situation, inhabitants have developed an understanding of their area and neighbors; they assume parallels in understanding and perspective and express less interest in their respective central governments.
Borderlands and Border Identities History and the collective memory of a population are sometimes stronger reference points in the construction of identity than regulations and restrictions. Above, the regional identity of the Austrian–Italian borderland population was highlighted. While the border and with it the political regime changed several times over the past century, the population continued to identify with local customs and was also able to protect their local dialects and customs. A similar situation prevailed in Lwiw (Lemberg; Lwow), a city in the central part of western Ukraine that was part of the Austrian–Hungarian Empire in the nineteenth century. Those born there at the beginning of the twentieth century experienced various regimes. They were Austrians before World War I and became Poles afterward. The city was occupied by the Soviets in 1939, by the German army in 1941, and from 1944 until 1991, it was under Soviet control again. Since 1991, it has been the largest city in western Ukraine. Today, most inhabitants speak Ukrainian in Lwiw, while in Kiev the inhabitants speak Russian. A walk through the city provides an experience of these changing political and cultural influences, which have been codified in street names and signs and architecture as well as in less material forms such as poems and narratives. Although it was strictly forbidden in Soviet times to speak German and Polish and to refer to their eras, the language and customs from both traditions have still survived and flourished. As in Ambos Nogales, such populations develop a regional identity as ‘border people’, which can be stronger than the changing national identities.
Current Research Issues Over the past 20 years, we have witnessed an exponential growth of border studies, predominantly in Europe and North America. The enlargement of the EU in 2005 brought about a change in the meaning and permeability of the Union’s internal and external borders, while 9/11 resulted in putting the meaning of the outer borders of the US into a new geopolitical framework. In Europe, borders have been an even greater source of discussion since the enlargement of the Schengen space in 2008, which means a larger internally ‘borderless’ Europe with the new member states enforcing the outer borders of ‘fortress Europe’. This has led to critical discussion in the previous member states and needs more research on the new neighborhoods. In Africa, borderlands are under tremendous pressure by the great numbers of refugees, who flee as a result of civil war or environmental dangers. Here, not much research has been undertaken yet, so we are in need of a greater understanding of the processes of inclusion and exclusion in borderlands. Another challenge for borderlands is ongoing climatic and environmental change, which involves the entire planet, regardless of borders. Nevertheless, state responses in the form of regulations will differ along the borders, thus creating substantially different economic environments. In addition, both the special restrictions and potential advantages of borderlands are being researched. A partial list of research issues includes the constant confrontation between regional and national identities and the subsequent questioning of the nation-state and its norms; the level of development as a function of national law, international relations, and asymmetries; borderlands as both lived and perceived spaces; and borderlands as socially and discursively constructed regions. See also: Citizenship; Cold War; Economies, Borderland; Ethnic Conflict; Geopolitics and Religion; Hegemony; Nation; Political Boundaries; Regionalism; State; Territory and Territoriality.
Further Reading Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute. Kolossov, V. (2005). Border studies: Changing perspectives and theoretical approaches. Geopolitics 10, 606--632. Kristof, L. (1959). The nature of frontiers and boundaries. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 49, 269--282. Martinez, O. J. (1994). Border People. Life and Society in the US–Mexico Borderlands. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Mattingly, D. J. and Hansen, E. (2006). Women and Change at the US– Mexico Border. Mobility, Labor and Activism. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press.
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Minghi, J. (1963). Boundary studies in political geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 53, 407--428. Newman, D. (2002). Boundaries. In Agnew, J., Mitchell, K. & Toal, G. (eds.) A Companion to Political Geography, pp 123--137. Oxford: Blackwell. Newman, D. and Agnew, J. (eds.). Geopolitics. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis Group LLC. Newman, D. (2006). The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our ‘borderless’ world. Progress in Human Geography 2, 143--161. Paasi, A. (1996). Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness: The Changing Geographies of the Finnish–Russian Border. New York: Wiley. Paasi, A. (2005). Generations and the ‘development’ of border studies. Geopolitics 10, 663--671. Patrick, M. J., Van Houtum, H. and van der Velde, M. (eds.) Journal of Borderland Studies. Prescott, J. R. V. (1965). The Geography of Frontiers and Boundaries. Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company. Van Houtum, H. (2005). The geopolitics of borders and boundaries. Geopolitics 10, 672--679. Wastl-Walter, D. (ed.) (2009). Research Companion to Border Studies. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Werlen, B. (1997). Sozialgeographie Allta¨glicher Regionalisierungen. Band 2 Globalisierung, Region und Regionalisierung. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
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Relevant Websites http://www.aebr.net Association of European Border Regions. http://www.ccbres.sdsu.edu California Center for Border and Regional Economic Studies, San Diego State University, California. http://www.crossborder.ie Centre for Cross Border Studies, Amargh, Northern Ireland. http://www.qub.ac.uk Centre for International Border Research (CIBR), Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. http://www.nmsu.edu Center for Latin American Border Studies, New Mexico State University. http://www.ifg.dk Danish Institute of Border Region Studies, Aabenraa, Denmark. http://www.dur.ac.uk International Boundaries Research Unit, University of Durham, UK. www.kun.nl Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. http://www.ctc.ee Peipsi Centre for Transboundary Cooperation, Tartu, Estonia. http://www.sandiego.edu Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, California.