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Kolberi constitutes a form of cross-border labor prevalent in the western regions of Iran, wherein individuals engage in the transportation of various goods across borders to generate income. Despite the fact that government institutions and the border guard police consider Kolberi illegal, a large number of border residents are engaged in this job. A part of this group is made up of adolescents, on whom this research is focused. The researchers adopt a Cultural Criminology approach to understand how adolescents get involved in Kolberi. To gather information, the research employed a combination of interviews, document analysis, and virtual data, while thematic analysis was utilized to examine the findings. Our findings reveal that the dialectical interaction between the political economy of border, border culture, and the adolescent Kolbers' subculture contribute to the formation of adolescents Kolberi and the reproduction of Kolberi within the border community. In this way, adolescents Kolberi is an illustrative exemplar of the development of cultural criminology of border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mainstream approach of regional integration impact assessments is mainly limited to assessing cross-border development projects/programmes. There is still a lack of critical assessment of how stakeholders at different institutional levels conceptualise the border. Local (municipal) strategic plans provide a reflection of the spatial imaginaries of stakeholders, perception planners, institutional power structures, and, to some extent meaning of the border to the local people. Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) in South Africa were adopted as an important development planning strategy in the post-apartheid era. IDPs of 49 borderland municipalities were systematically reviewed using the Key-Word-in-Context (KWIC) content analysis technique of the keyword 'border' to determine the importance of state borders in light of regional integration. Border security and management is one of the most common themes associated with the border. This suggested that borders were mainly perceived as threats and barely considered as a potential resource for cross-border cooperation or integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish archaisms due to historic isolation, and the south associated with ties to a Mexican identity due to the location of the U.S.–Mexico border. The current study uses perceptual dialectology to capture the way in which speakers in the south of New Mexico perceive this north/south divide and communicate their identity. Overall, there is evidence of the north/south divide, but speakers in southern New Mexico focus much more on language use such as Spanglish, English, and Spanish than on their northern counterparts. Participants reference language mixing over language "purity" and borders over an explicit rural/urban divide. Like previous accounts, we see reference to the "correctness" of both English and Spanish, examples of specific terminology used in different parts of the state, and descriptions of accents throughout the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deconstructs the parliamentary discourses regarding two migratory incidents in Ceuta, May 2021, and Melilla, June 2022, when hundreds of people attempted to cross the fences that separate Morocco from Spain. Most of them were immediately deported, many injured, and several died. This analysis compares the density of populist, anti-populist, re-bordering, and de-bordering references in forty-five speeches at the Spanish Congress regarding both tragic events. Vox speakers articulate a distinct discourse that instrumentalises these incidents to convey a sense of existential crisis and to (re)define a populist right-wing political identity based on moral hierarchies, a homogenising conception of society and the exclusion of a dangerous "other." Meanwhile some parties applied a populist logic to promote de-bordering views and others combined re-bordering and de-bordering claims without imposing a populist frame. This was an opportunity to exhibit a progressive sense of place in borderlands contrasting with Vox's reactionary one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objective: Political, economic, communicative and cultural borders still limit the accessibility of acute healthcare services for patients so that they frequently have to accept longer distances to travel to the next provider within their own country. In this paper, we analyze the impact of borders and opening of borders on acute medical care in hospitals and on patients in border regions. Methods: We develop a conceptual framework model of cross-border healthcare and apply it to the Polish–German border area. The model combines the distance decay effect, a catchment area analysis, economies of scale and the learning curve. Results: Borders have a major impact on acute medical care in hospitals and on patients. Setting of new borders will reduce the accessibility of health facilities for patients or require the establishment of new hospitals. Reopening borders might induce a vicious circle leading to the insolvency of a hospital which might result in poorer health for some patients. Conclusion: Strong effort should be invested to overcome political and cultural borders to improve the health of the population in border regions. Similarly, increased cross-border acute healthcare must be seen in the context of rural health and the special situation of small rural hospitals in rural peripheral areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the multifaceted relationship between the integration of the French language and its impact on the security dynamics along Nigerian borders. The study delves into the historical, cultural, and linguistic dimensions of French language adoption in Nigeria, examining how this integration influences diplomatic ties, crossborder communication, and regional cooperation. Furthermore, the research investigates the security implications stemming from linguistic interactions, considering factors such as information exchange, intelligence sharing, and collaborative efforts between Nigeria and neighboring Francophone countries. Through a comprehensive analysis, the study aims to provide insights into the evolving landscape of language integration and its role in shaping the security dynamics within the geopolitical context of Nigerian border regions. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the complex interplay between language, diplomacy, and security, offering valuable perspectives for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners involved in regional cooperation and conflict resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital games are one of the most engaging forms of media. Players can have a first-hand experience and the possibility of feeling immersed within a digital setting where agency is exerted. This paper seeks to understand the role of digital games as new means of communication and their potential to convey messages that may defy gamers to question the moral grand narratives that shape contemporary societies. In a moment when many countries have opted to close or limit the circulation in their borders, it is important to think about the role played by the border as a historic liminal entity for the representation of societies and communities, distinguishing those who belong from those who do not. The representation of the border in digital games have tended to follow one of the main tropes explored in other media: the border as a physical space that set boundaries between different nations and different regions of the world. In order to assert the potential of digital games to offer a more comprehensive representation of the border as a liminal space, the case of Papers, Please! (2013) will be analyzed. Based on a qualitative methodology, having content analysis as primary data collection method, the paper intends to contribute to the discussion on how history may narrativized and, eventually, reinterpreted in digital games. Papers, Please! analysis will be centered on the relationship that is set between player and border, that is presented as a liminal space where the game's action takes places entirely. Moreover, the paper intends to discuss the role that has been played by digital games in the representation of serious topics and how they have evolved as communication tools beyond their role as entertainment products. [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]

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]

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 Russian and Soviet governments believed the border to be a social and political construct. They often described and considered it as a foreign policy issue and a point of military vulnerability. In the course of 70 years of Sino-Russian relations since 1949, the border turned from a porous imperial fringe to a line of defense, a zone of economic growth, and a zone of economic anxiety. Throughout this evolution process, the Russian central government failed to grant agency to the local authorities and indigenous communities. The article argues that the current Russian federal government entrusts the local government with two conflicting goals in the borderlands: building strong cross-border ties and maintaining a "strong vertical of power" with top-down management and absolute supremacy of national security matters. [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]

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]

For early twentieth-century Koreans, one of the most feared invaders to breach the country's northern border with China was the tiny viral pathogen Rinderpest morbillivirus (rinderpest, or cattle plague). This study examines the social consequences of rinderpest outbreaks along the colonial Sino-Korean border and the methods undertaken by the Japanese Government-General of Korea to control viral "invasions" from Manchuria. Rinderpest prevention primarily functioned as an extension of the colonial police. Despite universal fears of rinderpest's ravages, which devastated a rural economy dependent on animal labor, colonized Koreans exhibited wide-ranging reactions to the heavy-handed methods adopted by imperial officials to fight the disease. Korean responses included outright resistance such as cross-border cattle smuggling, attacking veterinary officials, or protests against livestock travel bans, as well as varying degrees of cooperation. Moving chronologically from before the beginning of formal colonial rule in 1910 until the 1930s, this article strives to explain how a modern veterinary regime was implemented and negotiated in the northern colonial Korean borderland. Such a view is essential for understanding not only Korea's colonial past but also Korean responses to infectious disease "invasions" in the present day. [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]

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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]

The context of a globalized world brings with it vertiginous and trending changes throughout the planet, influencing the social, economic and territorial political spheres of all nations, thus modifying the development processes and interrelationships of established systems and creating uncertainty, changes and imbalances is the case of the Colombo-Venezuelan border zone, the situation described above requires a broader vision and taking measures in advance of the transitory conditions of the global future, for this reason the objective of this research outlined in this article was to point out the probable changes and with greater impact in the different areas that must be considered in the design of regional development policies, plans and programs, for their future projection character. In the methodological development, incidental variables and the possible public management alternatives that can be considered for the design of plans and programs for the development and competitiveness of Norte de Santander are described. He border region has gone through two stages, the first from 1860 to 1914, then a period of disintegration of the flows of capital, trade and workers from Colombia to Venezuela, and finally from 1950 to today accompanied by the changes to socialism in Venezuela., pandemics and most recently the arrival of socialism in Colombia through President Petro. [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]

The identity, be it that of an individual, a group or a community, can generate convergence, but also divergence in relation to the other. The other, dichotomous, acquires the expression of the "beyond"; beyond what is specific to one, to one's identity. A frontier, be it symbolic or ideological, can thus be identified around identity constructions. Central and Eastern Europe does not only make no exception to this rule, but, in our assertion, it is the space that imposes, perhaps most in Europe, such identity borders. Methodologically, the focus of our analysis lies primarily on the identity boundaries generated by the specific ethno-religious, linguistic or cultural, but also by the nature of the mental specific to the area. This paper develops in a new methodological construction ideas and synthetic research contained in a previous paper on identity as a border in the space of Central and Eastern Europe. For the purpose of a conceptual clarification and to respond to the methodological desideratum already announced, this paper makes comparative references to the case of the states of Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro or to the case of the Albanians in the Balkans. At a comparative level, the reality of identity cleavages, which oftenly takes the shape of borders, is similar in the Republic of Moldova and in the Balkans. However, a particular note given by the context is kept, namely the specificity and the geopolitics of the former Soviet space in relation to the former Yugoslav one. Identity dilemmas and controversies in the Republic of Moldova, as well as others in Central and Eastern Europe, are determined / fueled by the geopolitical interests of some states / powers that have used them to expand or maintain influences. Here, the boundaries of identity took the form of ideological or symbolic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, aspects concerning the dynamics that take place in a well-defined "social space" when factors that are partly or totally independent of individuals break into it (i.e., pandemics, wars, revolutions and similar) will be explored. The reference is to "social space" since, by placing itself in the meso dimension of analysis, this concept succeeds in overcoming the differences between the concepts of border and boundary by encompassing both the physical/material and socio-psycho-relational aspects that in it is realized. The aim of this article is to try to answer the question of whether social living space can be considered a "state of exception" and a "state of social exception" when the perception of individuals is subjected to a continuous tension that tends to deconstruct and redefine this space. In order to achieve this, the reflections will be supported by the consequences of the "confinement" (lockdown) due to the SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic that started at the end of 2019 and that provided different scenarios in the world (here the reference will be to Latin America and Colombia in particular). [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]

The object of this article is to reflect on the concept of boundaries in relation to the Basque language (Euskara). The starting point is the Basque endoethnonym and the concepts which point to language as a marker of distinctiveness and a barrier to others. The article discusses the situation of the Basque language as a minority language, which is broken down into dialects, the phenomenon of diglossia and multilingualism in the region, and contemporary challenges faced by the language. Attention is also paid to the importance of knowledge of the Basque language in the studies of Basque culture, and in the integration of immigrants. [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]

The size of Indonesia's territory poses challenges related to border security. There are still many land border points between Indonesia and Malaysia on the island of Borneo that have not been agreed upon, as well as the specific topography of the area, which requires a new pattern of border control, compared to using the traditional pattern. This study elaborates on how a new pattern in border security uses UAV's, the strength of the 51st Air Squadron. The study was conducted using qualitative methods and selecting informants with purposive sampling techniques and data processing using the NVivo 12 Plus application. The results showed that the use of UAV's in border security was not optimal. From all research dimensions, the Country and Collaboration dimensions show a pattern that is not yet in accordance with the needs, indicating that the use of UAV's in border security must start from the policies and management organizations. [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]

The notion of narratives can be regarded as a significant tool to map the complex means by which social relations are organized, made meaningful, and maintained (Somers, 1994). On the borders of Europe, social relations are often constructed across national dividing lines. Especially now, given the social consequences of COVID-19, which include re-bordering processes in Europe, the question of borders and bordering is in the spotlight. Against this backdrop, this article elaborates on the concept of narratives, which may be crucial for understanding the complex processes of deconstructing and reconstructing state borders and social boundaries. By focusing on three types of narratives--individual, public, and spatial--we apply the narrative approach to exploring divided cities and propose an analytical model that could contribute to an understanding of the processes occurring in border cities and could thus broaden the field of studies on borders and space. [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]

The identity, be it that of an individual, a group or a community, can generate convergence, but also divergence in relation to the other. The other, dichotomous, acquires the expression of the "beyond"; beyond what is specific to one, to one's identity. A frontier, be it symbolic or ideological, can thus be identified around identity constructions. Central and Eastern Europe does not only make no exception to this rule, but, in our assertion, it is the space that imposes, perhaps most in Europe, such identity borders. Methodologically, the focus of our analysis lies primarily on the identity boundaries generated by the specific ethno-religious, linguistic or cultural, but also by the nature of the mental specific to the area. This paper develops in a new methodological construction ideas and synthetic research contained in a previous paper on identity as a border in the space of Central and Eastern Europe. For the purpose of a conceptual clarification and to respond to the methodological desideratum already announced, this paper makes comparative references to the case of the states of Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro or to the case of the Albanians in the Balkans. At a comparative level, the reality of identity cleavages, which oftenly takes the shape of borders, is similar in the Republic of Moldova and in the Balkans. However, a particular note given by the context is kept, namely the specificity and the geopolitics of the former Soviet space in relation to the former Yugoslav one. Identity dilemmas and controversies in the Republic of Moldova, as well as others in Central and Eastern Europe, are determined / fueled by the geopolitical interests of some states / powers that have used them to expand or maintain influences. Here, the boundaries of identity took the form of ideological or symbolic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to answer why Kawaluso Island peoples have an orientation to send their children to a higher level. Kawaluso Island as one of the islands in the RI-Philippines border region, like other border areas, has problems in the field of education, both access and infrastructure. This study uses ethnographic methods as part of qualitative research making researchers as the main instrument. Data collection uses participatory observation where the researcher is involved in the activities of the community under study. The findings in this study are that school and prestige for parents (Kawaluso peoples) become discourses that cannot be separated from one and another. A form of recognition or prestige for parent, who are able to send their children to a higher level, is one of the practices of denial of economic practices. Nevertheless, the process of recognizing parents in achieving educational attainment by children, at the same time also benefits economically. The economic benefit in question is when Kawaluso residents who have finished school are able to carry out a process of vertical social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transboundary waters serve critical bordering functions and are often obstacles for migrants transiting throughout the globe. This article focuses on migrant encounters with Mesoamerican river-borders, as highlighted in recent media images of river crossings – from individuals to migrant caravans – that show how people use waterbodies to evade state capture. Analysing widely circulated images of migrant death at the Rio Grande (US–Mexico) and the caravan spectacle at the Suchiate River (Mexico-Guatemala), I attend to contemporary migrations taking place at the intersection of securitisation, border-making, and ecology. Reflecting on historical events such as the Río Sumpul Massacre in El Salvador, recent Central American caravan migrations across Mexico-Guatemala, to the widely circulated river death of migrants Óscar and Valeria Martínez Ramírez in mid-2019, I consider the environmental relations, cultural practices, and social forms that emerge around river-borders. I highlight ongoing processes of terraforming that are shaping borderland biomes and that are subsequently disrupting boundary dynamics linked to popular mobility, informal economies, and ecosystem health. Juxtaposing migrant sociality at river-borders with contemporary border-formation, I show how migrant movement is discouraged and repelled in service of sealing borders through the making of ecologies of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of a political border has led to the surfacing of many socio-cultural activities in all the borderlands across the globe, igniting the interest of social scientists worldwide. Borderland studies more than often accentuates the history of how the political border came into being and its impact on the ethnic identity (articulations, ambiguities, and contradictions of identity) of the people residing in the borderland (Berdahl, 1999). The present borderland under study has witnessed a parallel upshot of the political border on the identity of the people residing in the borderland between West Kameng (Arunachal) and Bhutan. The identity of the Monpas* from West Kameng and Sharchops from the Eastern Bhutan has been jeopardized time and again. This paper is an attempt to understand the “Plurality of self ” from the periphery of Arunachal-Bhutan Borderland from an emic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Albanian town of Gjirokastër is located 30 kilometers from the Greek border. While this proximity has inevitably contributed to directing migration flows to Greece, the focus of this article is to understand the characteristics of migration from Gjirokastër to Italy - the second destination for Albanian migrants after Greece. Findings will show how, despite its marginality, migration from Gjirokastër to Italy plays a significant role in remaking the symbolic boundaries within the social space under consideration. Based on a short period of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in the summer of 2015, this research follows the ties and traces of migration from Gjirokastër to Italy through an experimental analysis of the town's visual landscape and soundscape and that of the narratives which emerged from photo-elicitation sessions and face-to-face interviews with individuals related to Albanian migrants in Italy. Thanks to the analysis of both these public and private spheres, the article specifically proposes an understanding of the migration phenomenon which focuses on its transformative role within the place of origin, its categories and its hierarchies. In particular, we will see how migration to Italy may become a way to transform the status of Muslim Albanians vis-à-vis Orthodox Albanians in Gjirokastër through religious conversion to Catholicism, as well as as through the opportunities provided by learning the Italian language. In fact, both language learning and religious conversion - either before or after migration - seem to act as tools for social mobility on an individual basis. This concerns not only migrants, but also their kin and, more extensively, the local population of Gjirokastër through infrastructures (church, honorary consulate, school, etc.) indirectly linked with migration to Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper contributes to the literature that explores the effects of European integration, providing new evidence about its impact on population distribution in the EU28 regions (NUTS 3 level) during the period 2000-2018. The main objectives are to explore the effects of the recent three EU enlargements on the growth in population share within the border regions and to compare the behaviour between core and peripheral regions. We use an empirical difference-in-difference approach. The findings show that border regions experienced positive effects on growth in population share since EU integration, but it did not completely reverse their relative population decline. At the same time, the process of European integration seems to have aggravated the demographic decline of EU peripheral regions compared to the EU core regions. Moreover, for the regions that are both border and peripheral, the EU integration effect has been stronger than in border only regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay questions the rise of border humanitarianism in the North-Eastern Moroccan borderlands. The increasing presence of humanitarian organizations in contexts marked by border violence has raised the attention of a number of critical migration scholars. Observers, however, have failed to problematize the presence of humanitarian activities, traditionally connected to emergency contexts, in sites integrated in the "routinary" regulation of mobility. Building on 8 months of fieldwork conducted in 2016 and 2017, the article addresses this gap, taking the working of border humanitarianism as a vantage point to reflect on the relation of borders to the exception, on the role of violence in border maintenance and, ultimately, on the politics of life and death at the frontier. Drawing on the work of Salter and Vaughan Williams on exceptionalism and biopolitics at the border, the article makes two points. First, I argue that the ordinary functioning of the Spanish–Moroccan border is founded on the bestialization and devaluation of Black lives, often to the point of death. Second, I contend that the integration of the "exception" in border normalcy activates, challenges, and endlessly reproduces the need for emergency interventions. In this dystopian framework, humanitarianism becomes a tool for the ordinary maintenance of migrants' degraded life, transformed by the border into a less-than-citizen, less-than-human form of existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of the Look East Policy (LEP) ─ now the Act East Policy ─ in the 1990s signaled a marked shift in India's economic policy aimed at transforming its northeastern region from a peripheral frontier to an economic corridor. The regional focus of the policy commonly appears in references to the northeast region as a whole and the policy suggestions are centered on ending the region's isolation and underdevelopment. This paper looks at how the inhabitants of a borderland village on the Mizoram-Myanmar border maneuvered themselves in response to the economic drive for the border opening intertwined with the extension of state rule and control. The paper shows how the agenda of the state and the local communities, rather than being in opposition, often converged with local community interests when it came to enhancing trade and liberalizing movement. These factors further served to re-shape ways of identification and belonging as well as everyday trade, commercial transactions, and nationhood. Against this backdrop, the paper engages with everyday borderland lives to examine how change through the policy was mediated upon the interface of competing state and non-state agents as well as local communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the perception of border. It is widely believed that the border of European Union is dividing Europe from non-European space. It contributes in developing of European identity versus the identity of „others? or non-European countries. Through source analysis I will try to focus on the concept of border and see if it contributes to homogenization of the space. Does the border of European Union create particular perception around the European space?! To what extent are economic and border policies of European Union making member states similar in a way and how do members themselves perceive their role in transnational organization?! Non-European countries try to include themselves in this alliance of advanced states thinking they gain particular privilege by being the members of European Union. After creation of European Union non-member states started to perceive the border as the obstacle or the divider rather than unifier. Even if member states might perceive the union as homogeneous entity to some extent, other non-member countries view the border as divider of spaces and definition of Geographic Europe. Could it be that political border created special perception around the organization which influenced the idea towards European Union among Non-EU states?! The paper will try to see if the border perception influences the perception of whole European Union. Article will try to also look into the problem of homogenous perception of organization and the concrete tools introduced to achieve the similar level of understanding among the member states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This photo-essay illustrates a study of visual representations of Russia in the Sino-Russian borderland. I suggest that what is distinctive about this region is not a particular identity of its residents, but rather the gradual emergence of Russian-themed spaces. This "space theming" phenomenon is not exclusive to this area: In the last decades, representations of foreign countries have become a part of the Chinese landscape. However, while we find examples of simulated "foreign" urban spaces in newest suburban developments or theme parks portraying different countries (such as "Window of the World" in Shenzhen) throughout the country, images of Russia have been present in one continuous space, stretching to the Chinese-Russian border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-border cooperation, border regions, soft spaces? This special issue approaches cross-border informal planning processes in cross-border regions by analysing them from a perspective that combines networks, governance and territorialization. Such a relational perspective will be developed by papers which deal with a variety of European cross-border regions and empirical evidence related to the nexus of networks, governance and territorialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a terminological analysis of the ambivalent geospatial concepts of “border”, “border zone”, which are characterized by a long synonymic row and simultaneously have the semantic load of lines, strips of separation as well as interaction; with account of historical and genetic, natural and geographical, morphological and functional approaches, conceptual and terminological systems of “state border”, “borderlands”, “transborderlands” are analyzed; semantic shifts of the notions of “border”, “border zone”, “frontier” according to the world order tendencies are defined.

Isolating certain critical blind spots that one encounters in studying lifeworlds of the global South, this essay calls for: (1) a grasp of the irreducible singularity of each historical formation as an essential aspect of southern Cultural Studies, so that its lessons are not readily erased, dismissed as signs of failure, or bracketed as idiosyncratic exceptions to universalized standards; and (2) the recognition of volatile and illicit forms of popular agency—emerging in friction with the security-obsessed governmentality of the borderlands, the exclusionary institutions of civil society, and the normativities of citizenship—as legitimate heralds of a global political futurity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]