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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]

Agribusiness has unleashed new territorial dynamics on the Brazil and Paraguay border. Derived from Brazilian public policies influenced by geopolitical objectives, the spillover of agribusiness into Paraguayan territory has created productive, commercial, and logistical networks that have intensified the porosity of this border. In light of this, criminal groups have used these networks to carry out cross-border crimes. Among these illicit acts, the illegal flow of pesticides and agrochemical inputs stands out, since they use the road network to transport and distribute these products to the thriving agribusiness segment, despite the asymmetry between sanitary and legal parameters between Brazil and Paraguay. Through a qualitative analysis of quantitative data and interviews with agents responsible for security in the Brazilian Border Strip, we identified the characteristics of this cross-border illicit flow and built a scenario for the period after the construction of the RILA, which will make the river border of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, with the department of Alto Paraguay, Paraguay, between the cities of Porto Murtinho and Carmelo Peralta, more porous and therefore more vulnerable to these crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Latin American Integration Route (RILA), also known as the Bioceanic Route, is an initiative with the potential to promote the development of the Brazil-Paraguay border zone. The creators of RILA aim, since the creation of the proposal in 2006 (which would be made official in 2015), to boost logistic activities, with the goal to increasing exports of commodities (grains, ores and meat) and, secondly, to boost regional tourism activity. In this sense, this article aims to analyze the potential and obstacles that involve the governance of tourism at the border between Brazil and Paraguay, specifically between the twin cities of Porto Murtinho (BR) and Carmelo Peralta (PY). Regarding the methodology, the present work configures a qualitative research, based on bibliographical and documentary approach, under an interdisciplinary perspective, anchored in the references of Tourism and Political Geography. The theoretical-empirical results correspond to the conceptual delimitation of what configures the governance of tourism in international border territories and the organization of the institutional matrix that will support the understanding of the organization of tourism and its governance in the researched territory. Furthermore, maps were created that demonstrate the intersection between the main tourism development policy in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul and the RILA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines enforcement practices and intra-ethnic interactions and encounters across the international border between Eritrea and Ethiopia from 2000 to 2018, with a particular focus on the Central Sector. The specific objective is to investigate how the Tigrinya ethnic group, who were arbitrarily separated by the colonial border between Eritrea and Ethiopia, make use of intra-ethnic relationships to combat the new border enforcement practices imposed by Eritrea and Ethiopia to advance their everyday reciprocal interests. This micro perspective is applied to two border towns, Serha and Tserona, which are located at Eritrea's border with Ethiopia. By analysing the everyday lived experiences of the people who live along the border, this article argues that the underground cross-border support and interactions among kin groups play a significant role in their everyday lives as they combat the States' everyday border enforcement practices. [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]

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]