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As a social institution, a border simultaneously divides and connects. When thinking about state borders, or borderlands, scholars tend to view them as either linear or zonal spaces, distinguishing as well as linking one state with another. My article argues for an alternative interpretation and explores the geopolitical and cultural meanings of a historical border region from both domestic and inter-state perspectives. The border of China and Korea along the Yalu and the Tumen Rivers, is arguably one of the oldest state boundaries that is still effective today. The history of the border river region as a "buffer space" can be traced back to the seventeenth century when Qing China and Chosŏn Korea established the border along their northern frontiers. However, the geopolitical function of this border went beyond considerations of defence or communications. From the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, both the Manchu-Qing court and the Chosŏn court implemented strict laws to control domestic population flows to their northeastern and northern frontiers. Such policies, I argue, must be understood in the context of domestic politics in the two courts. Internal anxiety over preserving Manchu and Korean identity, coupled with strategy to control the border against an external power, contributed to the making of this borderland. Hence, the Qing-Chosŏn border region served as a "dual buffer". Employing historical records and local gazettes in the two countries, my article reveals a subtler layer of "buffer" from a case study in early modern East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Great War and Trianon opened a new chapter in the history, not only of the Kingdom of Hungary, but also of Western Hungary. Besides dividing up the counties of Sopron, Moson and Vas, the newly re-drawn borders also split up most of the railway lines running within them as well. From the territory sliced from the three counties, the previously non-existent province of Austria, Burgenland, was established in 1922. In many cases, the new demarcation lines followed boundaries of old districts or settlements, but it was rare to find natural boundaries among them. As a result, between the two World Wars, the use of the affected railway tracks began to change similar to several contemporary Central European cases, with the exception of GYSEV (Győr–Sopron–Ebenfurth Railway Company), which could remain in its original form. This research paper aims to examine how the shift of borders in this region affected railway transport. It is based on the local historical literature on the railway, regional history and primary resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regions are main building blocks of larger territorial units, but they also display high dynamics affecting how regional identities can be studied. The regional dynamics and multilayered nature ultimately require new approaches to their visual representation. The goal of this article is to present a novel approach to visual presentation of the administrative regions' dynamics by cartographic means of representation in a synthetic map that can assist in the research of regional identities. We adopt the theory of the institutionalisation of regions, the administrative division of the state is a process in which the borders and names of regions are constantly transformed causing changes in the perception of the population. Then we analyse the laws on administrative division reforms and old/historical map documents. This enabled us to identify the dynamics of individual borders and names of administrative regions (choronyms) that form spaces with a higher or lower degree of stability. We propose a visualisation approach to represent such dynamics, and we assert that through cartographic visualisation of the degree of transformation in these spaces it is possible to get an insight into population's awareness about the named regions and their delimitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has concentrated on border guards and the politics of bodies, but less attention has been made to the interaction between embodied differentials and women's varied household income classes and its consequent effect, such as a dichotomy in gendered control over women's mobility. This study established such a perspective by following the continuation of the application of the body as an analytical scale in scholarships of feminist political geography and taking the heterogeneous women's voices into account. The analysis shed light on the gendered forms of domination implied by the entangled protection and control paradigms in framing the practices of patrolling the border. Thus, in this article, the author unpacked how incorporating the entwined paradigms of protection and control into the framing of border guarding manifests differential gendered implications, ranging from fear of making mobility-related decisions to immobilisation patterns. It connects these practices to gendered processes of othering, highlighting the interaction between embodied differentials and the various economic positions of women and thus finds a dichotomy in gendered control over mobility in the name of border protection under the guise of border patrolling practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extension of legal protection to natural areas has often been artificially confined within the borders of given countries. The border between Poland and Slovakia offers a very good example of this. While the very beginnings of this trend date back to the eighteenth century, it was here in the 1930s that early cross-border cooperation made its appearance. The solutions arrived at justifying their pioneering status, by the standards of Europe and the globe. Initiatives included the establishment in the Pieniny Mountains of Europe's first (and the world's second) transboundary protected area, as well as the founding of a world-first tripartite UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the Eastern Carpathians. The article outlines the development of the areas under legal protection from their origins through to the eve of the accessions of Poland and Slovakia to the European Union. It draws on legal documents and analyses of scientific works, regarding the dilemmas associated with the founding of protected areas, and interviews with the administrations of the protected areas concerned. Emphasis is laid on the geopolitics of historic cross-border conservation and cooperation. • Explores the intersection between border geographies and historical nature preservation. • Studies how legally protected natural areas took shape over five periods in the twentieth century. • Demonstrates that borders isolate conservation communities and prevent cooperation. • Explains the idea of Europe's first transboundary Parks and the world's oldest tripartite Biosphere Reserve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the border effect phenomenon affecting the mobility of inhabitants in border regions. It aims to identify the determinants of the border effect in transport at the municipal level, considering the distance from the border, the populations and the characteristics of the closest bordering country. The survey in the Czech Republic eventually involved 675 representatives of municipalities who answered questions on inter-municipal mobility. The results confirmed that the most substantial handicap was population size, with small populations corresponding to the limited use of public transport when travelling beyond a given border. The results confirmed that the characteristics of the state or region that shares the border must be considered when assessing border regions. Therefore, the solution to the problems of individual border regions cannot be viewed with a single instrument. It is necessary to consider substantial differences resulting from the economic level of neighbouring countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern Ireland and Upper Silesia exhibit numerous analogies when it comes to their local communities' experience of borders, divisions and partitions. The experience is reflected in recent partition narratives which prove that geopolitical and administrative interventions in space and territory are likely to create and define more than just lines on the maps and new jurisdictions. Borders and partitions are felt and endured, often imprinted on provincial memories, both individual and communal. Border crossings, borders in the mind and actual experiences connected with being partitioned and living in a borderland have determined, for the last 100 years, the parameters of what I call provincial memory in Northern Ireland and Upper Silesia, making them markedly different from national memory cultures in Ireland/Britain and Poland, respectively. The transcultural memory of partitions and borders, preserved in contemporary literary accounts of the past, informs the main thrust of the narratives of belonging in both regions. By exploring related examples of partition narratives and attitudes of regional writers to borderlands and partitions, this essay argues for a recognition, in the respective contexts of Northern Ireland and Upper Silesia, of significant differences between the discursive performances of provincial memory cultures and national ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate the roles of urban actors supporting migrants' struggles and confronting state control, focusing on the fields of family reunification and access to health care in the city of Frankfurt am Main. We bring together insights from border studies, street-level theory, and social policy and social work literature to elaborate on the notions of 'urban border space' and borderwork to offer a new theorisation on 'where the border is' and 'who makes the border'. Multiple transformations that have taken place in border control and the welfare state regime have led to diverse engagement on the part of civil society towards migrants, particularly in cities. City authorities, in turn, enforce the border, yet also respond to migrants' exclusion. Here, devolution and collaboration between city and civil society organisations have partly blurred the line between different types of urban actors. Our analysis identifies four roles within urban actors' borderwork – brokerage, advocacy, direct care and gatekeeping –, each of which is associated with a different relationship with state migration control. We thus argue that the supposed dichotomous relationship between state (re-)bordering and civil society de-bordering is too simplistic and that urban actors' roles in borderwork are instead multifaceted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensification of cross-border interactions, the progress achieved in the process of European integration and the expansion of the EU to the east raises the issue of cross-border cooperation in a political-geopolitical context. The issue of cross-border cooperation in general goes beyond geographical, economic and legal approaches. If we intend to treat the phenomenon from a specific point of view, we will find ambiguities and uncertainties regarding the role and functioning of some institutions in the process of cross-border cooperation and partnerships. Therefore, the full analysis of the cross-border cooperation process cannot be done only if we also evaluate the effects produced by the institutions in the local governance sector and their political dimension. The study aims to realize an inventory of the general trends and evolutions from the past century, regarding the perception of the Romania-Hungarian, but also focuses on the border cooperation activities which had an impact on transnational institution building amongst the local governance apparatus in Bihor County in the process of cross-border cooperation in the development period 2014-2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Border areas are a real challenge for tourism development. Usually associated with the periphery from a socio-economic point of view, these areas often have natural potential and attractive landscapes that have been little transformed by human activity and numerous historical and cultural tourist attractions. Although these areas have considerable tourism potential, this is not sufficient for the sustainable development of tourism and the exploitation of this potential is strongly influenced by the degree of permeability of the border. This is the case of the Romanian-Serbian border, which overlaps the most spectacular sector of the Danube – the Iron Gates Gorge. The main aim of this article is to analyse the role of tourism in the development of border areas and how it functions in a particular territorial context: the Danube Gorge located at the border between Romania and Serbia. The Romanian-Serbian border currently functions as an external border of the European Union in a favourable historical and political context, given the tradition of good neighbourliness between the two entities, the states located on either side of the Danube. However, the communist period altered the prospects for tourism development in this region through a very drastic and controlled border regime, even though the area benefited from major investment projects, such as the dam and hydroelectric power station at Porțile de Fier, built in the 1970s in cooperation with the former Yugoslavia. An analysis of the statistical data on tourism development shows that tourist traffic is on the increase, although there is a contradiction between the upward trend in tourist flows and the backwardness of large-scale tourist infrastructure, with the dominant type of accommodation being small, flexible, and rural accommodation that does not require large investments. The results presented in this article can be summarised in the general conclusion that the development of tourism in the Danube Gorge–Iron Gates remains dependent on the political factor and the border regime, even though the region has a remarkable tourism potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes an important way in which the Porfirio Díaz government tried to empower the president to control Mexico's northern border in the late 1870s. Just a few months after Díaz gained power, officers of the incoming administration attempted to gain exclusive authority for the Mexican executive over matters related to extradition requests. The president, Díaz's allies argued, was responsible for the country's foreign relations, and only he could decide on the surrender of fugitives to other nations. The article maintains that such claim aimed to build a legal apparatus that would strengthen the figure of the president to control what was then the key and problematic area of northern Tamaulipas. Furthermore, the article argues that the legal changes adopted regarding extradition matters contributed to shaping the early twentieth-century borderlands, although they failed to achieve their main objective. Thus, after the 1870s, the borderlands entered an unprecedented phase of transformation that, in many ways, revealed the inefficacy of the regime's extradition policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalization based on geographic-isolation has serious repercussions on construction of identities. Identities in geographically isolated borderlands in Jammu and Kashmir are doubly-marginalized due to lack of development and the impact of ongoing conflict and dispute between the nation-states of India and Pakistan. Dard-Shins; one such tribal borderland community of village Kilshey in Gurez, Kashmir have been living as 'non-registered non-rehabilitated refugees'. This research while tracing their displacement from across the border during the time of partition in 1947 to the present day refugee-camps and resettlement colonies, studies the concept of belonging and place-attachment vis-à-vis transition and mobility among the refugees here. The displacement led migration across hostile borders has made both the idea of home unsettled and identity uncertain for them. Caught up between these two is the idea of marginality that further informs their bonds of nationalism with both India and Pakistan. Survival as a borderland community in India has not been without the geographical-isolation and under-development that has further led to psychological-distancing and social-disability. Invoking their ancestral links to uss paar/the other side of the border they migrated from becomes pertinent while imagining a life outside decades of marginalization as has been experienced on iss paar/this side in India. This intersection of marginality, identity and displacement thus creates an interesting sphere where aspirations of moving out of the category 'refugee' are stronger than having lived as refugees for ages in the hope of just and fair rehabilitation and resettlement policies in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tens of thousands of children living on Mainland China cross the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a 'better education' every day. A well-oiled industry is in place to manage, facilitate and control this education mobility field. It involves schools, diverse businesses and nongovernmental organisations that, in articulation with the Chinese and Hong Kong states, stimulate and regulate the movement of people, materialities, ideas and practices. Drawing on our fieldwork and media analysis, this paper unpacks the transurban mobility industry to illustrate the role of the various players and how they work in conjunction to facilitate cross-border schooling, especially among the very young children. We map out and visualise with photos the workings of the schools, buses, escorts, tutoring centres, day care and boarding houses. We show how the mobility industry, intersecting with other business networks and mobility systems, links Shenzhen and Hong Kong, taking and making places in these cities, especially in the border region. Our paper illustrates the role of this mobility industry in the making of the political-economy and socio-culture of the border area, which constantly connects, divides and redefines the two cities and regions it bridges. We end with some reflections on the implications of the recent political challenges and COVID-I9 pandemic on this cross-border education mobility system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frontier tribes, inhabiting the Indo (Naga)-Myanmar border, are at the fringe of the nation-states. They remain outside the radar of connectivity and development. The international boundary line demarcated during the colonial rule, pierces through the middle of many villages. This was reinforced by the post-colonial Indian and Myanmar States, thus deepening the contestation between state and tribal society(s). The Indo (Naga)-Myanmar borderland, elicits the case of nation-state construction as opposed to what Lefebvre posits geographical space, as 'socially constructed'. The distortion of tribal land and territory in the forms of fencing and securitization amounts to the denial of a tribe's agency and erasure of their shared history and social relation. The paper charts out the ramification of the colonial state making project in the contemporary frontier tribes. It unfolds the contestation, presence and absence of the state in the borderlands and posits for development with justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being an Ethnic-Pahari-Sikh-Borderlander in Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir is a phenomenon that adds to the discourse of ethnicity and nationalism. Partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947 acted as a disruption in the socio-political history of the ethnic-community of Poonch generating difference and othering. This led to a newer set of challenges that re-imagines the concept of ethnicity altogether. Through an ethnographic account of the religiously assertive Sikh-identity in Poonch, this study asks the questions: Can the religious-reassertion of identities in a community render a concept as giant as ethnicity a myth? What happens to the historic origins of ethnic-bonds when identities begin to organise themselves exclusively on religious lines? Identities in Poonch exist at crossroads where being a religious Sikh challenge the idea of an ethno-geographic Sikh, both of them trying to co-exist under a bigger identity of being a borderlander. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the issue of "covidfencing" (the resurrection of borders during the COVID-19 pandemic) in the context of the historically and ethnically complex region of Cieszyn Silesia / Těšínské Slezsko / Śląsk Cieszyński / Teschener Schlesien on the Czech-Polish border. Conducting interviews with cross-border workers, representatives of municipalities or cross-border regions, and a street survey in a border town, this study analyses the impacts of covidfencing on this region between March 2020 and March 2021. Applying the concept of Balibar (2002), this study shows that the border between Czechia and Poland in the Cieszyn Silesia region has characteristics of a polysemic border. Some inhabitants experienced the border closure due to the pandemic situation as an existential threat, some organised protests because they perceive the border region as a whole to be their home, some claim that the resurrection of the border did not influence anything in their lives. This study introduces the complex network of cross-border relationships and discusses the possible reasons for different perceptions of the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a theoretical approach to the study of identity narratives from the concept of the bordering process. The first section describes the theoretical concepts that sustain the proposal, in particular, the concept of border as a mediating artifact, the theoretical concept of the bordering process as a social practice, and finally, identity narratives and the dialogical perspective of the self. The second section analyzes the proposals and limitations of some studies on identity narratives in international borderlands. In the same section, we develop our theoretical proposal for studying border identity narratives, which attempts to overcome some limitations of previous studies and respond to the debate on the role of others in the construction of the self. We conclude that the inclusion of the border as a semiotic artifact and the bordering process in the construction of the self provide a new perspective of identity narratives as border narratives for the study of border experiences throughout human development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking back to remember the "arrival" of AIDS in Turkey, this article explores how the spread of the new disease fueled border panic in Turkey from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Drawing on a rich array of material from the archives of national newspapers and magazines, this article analyzes the media discourse on migrant sex workers from the former USSR and the first HIV-positive men. It shows how both groups were seen as intruders bringing the virus from outside Turkey's borders to its territory. In both cases, I argue, fear of the spread of the virus across borders became entangled with anxieties about the movement of ideas, images, lifeworlds, and meanings relating to sexuality that were discursively constructed as fundamentally alien to Turkish ones. The movement of sexually and racially "other" bodies across borders was seen as a threat to the fragile construed border between "Turkishness" and "foreignness". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese influence at the northern Nepali borderlands have created cartographic anxieties and new political subjectivities for Himalayan Indigenous communities and Tibetan refugees, who call these mountain border spaces their home. This article discusses the changing dynamics of intercommunity kinship at the scale of the local which are ruptured yet re-imagined to repurpose and intervene state imaginations of borders. What affective bearings do new border dynamics create for citizens - both formal citizens and Tibetan refugees - at the borderlands? Based on eighteen months of ethnographic research conducted between 2016 and 2019 in Nepal, I examine the ways in which intimacy produces affection and familiarity at one end, while at the other engendering notions of disruptions in the everyday. For my respondents, placemaking and memory become active experiences of making do to overcome anxieties of the future. • Narrates everyday engagements with geopolitics at multiple scales. • Addresses belonging and placemaking practices situated in multiple sovereignties. • Illustrates intimate geopolitics and ways of making do in the borderlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]