Borderlands Borders and Global Frontiers - Complications Of A Seemingly Simple Concept, Defining Borders, Borderlands, And Frontiers, Frontier As Membrane
boundary
At first glance the concept of borders, borderlands, or frontiers would seem to be straightforward. A border or boundary is a line on a map delineating a territorial boundary or the limit of a political jurisdiction. Borders are primarily, but far from exclusively, seen as properties of and under the control of states. Nevertheless, this has generally not always been the case. Even in the contemporary world where such an interpretation often does apply, the concept of borders frequently becomes much more complicated.
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The first complication is semantic. In many European languages, including British English, the term frontier is a synonym for border. In the Americas, and especially in the United States, border means boundary, between countries, between the states of the United States, or between provinces in Mexico or Canada. Frontier, typically but not exclusively, refers to a historical boundary between expand…
In order to discuss these issues it is useful to present somewhat general definitions of these terms. The following definitions carry two caveats or cautions. First, as with any generalized concepts, they will not be precise for all uses. Second, these terms shift meaning over time and through space. Still, the following are useful for further discussion: boundary—a demarcation indicating s…
Because borderlands and frontiers are zones between different human organizations, they are also zones of intense interactions of objects, peoples, and ideas. These interactions can range from very peaceful, mutually beneficial relationships to incessant warfare. Oftentimes, several types of interactions along the range from peaceful to warlike can occur simultaneously. For instance, along the nor…
These complications give rise to yet another, enduring aspect of borders, borderlands, and frontiers. On first glance they all seem the same or certainly similar. But with closer examination, each border region seems unique. This puzzling aspect of frontiers has fascinated and frustrated scholars who study frontiers comparatively. The sociologist Thomas D. Hall argues that this puzzling quality de…
Because of the various complex interactions that occur along borders, in borderlands, and on frontiers, such places are very fertile areas for studying how social, political, economic, and cultural changes occur and how individuals and groups both shape and are shaped by those changes. They are zones where the local and the global interact very intensely and hence exhibit processes that are rarely…
No discussion of borders, borderlands, and frontiers would be complete without some attention to the metaphorical use of these terms. Most readers of English are familiar with such phrases as "the frontiers of medicine," "the frontiers of science," and "space, the final frontier." Behind these metaphors is a state-centered view of borders, borderlands, and…
Barth, Frederick, ed. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston: Little, Brown, 1969. Bentley, Jerry H. Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Brooks, James F. Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, …
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