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This article examines the multifaceted dimensions of landlockedness within the realm of international discourse, with a particular focus on its implications for managing global commons. Drawing from socio-legal literature and auto-ethnographic experiences during the recent intergovernmental negotiations for the BBNJ agreement under the 1982 Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as a case study, the paper prompts essential inquiries into the true essence of being landlocked in the face of global environmental challenges. Beyond traditional geographical definitions, the paper reveals the dynamic nature of landlockedness and underscores the intricate interplay of social, economic, cultural, geographical, and political factors in determining who has access to ocean space and resources and who does not. It emphasizes that landlockedness is not a static legal or physical characteristic but an ongoing process shaped by historical and political constructs. Expanding beyond the national level, the article illustrates how individuals, whether coastal or inland, experience isolation from the ocean, influencing their interactions with, perceptions of, and regulatory proposals for the ocean. This approach illuminates existing paradigms in the access, use, and management of space and resources. In conclusion, the article advocates for more inclusive and adaptable approaches in international policy debates. It calls for a departure from rigid classifications, urging for upholding collective action, recognising the intricate connections between geography, politics, law, and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the secrecies of border spirits within 20th century Finnish belief narratives. The aim is to explore how and in which contexts the imaginary aspects of border spirit narratives link to the idea of the "power of storytelling". The following study touches on areas such as the suspension of the fantasy and sociopolitical aspects within the narratives. The folklore materials focus mainly on the Finnish heartland and partly on the national borders. Especially, narrative research methods were used to analyse what is heard and seen of the border spirits and what contexts these narratives involve. Moreover, the results touch on the dynamics of belief narratives without limiting them to the territorial aspects of borders. Hence, the study also explores interpretative bridges between folklore and border studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blank and null votes are probably the electoral behaviour least taken into account by electoral studies. Though, in a democracy like Belgium, these votes are far from negligible and offer an untypical geography which underlines border areas. This paper will analyze this unknown electoral behaviour in an ecological and individual way. We will first build a multiple regression model in order to try to debrief the spatial variation of blank and null votes in Wallonia thanks to demographic and socioeconomic variables. Secondly, we will study the information retained by more than 2000 spoiled ballot papers. The study will highlight the opposition between rural and urban blank and null votes. The first ones are numerous, notably along the national borders, and reflect essentially hidden abstention or lack of interest in Belgian political life by citizens turned, in their private or professional life, towards France or Luxembourg. The second combine rejection of politics and ignorance of electoral rules in popular classes and first time voters.

This paper investigates the (un)making of borders as a form of labour governmentality in one of Amazon's warehouses in Poland. Guided by a critical theory of borders as a form of labour governmentality under global capitalism, we identify organizational practices through which socio-demographic categories traditionally deployed as principles of organizing work (e.g., gender, age, ability) are un made: the management of deskilled labour through an algorithmic system, the non-selective hiring of workers, the enforcement of social norms of interpersonal respect and a universal system of casualized employment. Together, these practices constitute workers as undifferentiated, interchangeable and equal labour, let them compete with each other under harshly exploitative conditions, and continuously dispose of the least productive among them, keeping all in structural uncertainty. The study contributes to the critical diversity literature by showing a 'post-diversity' governmentality that rests on equality, competition and precarization of labour as a whole, rather than segregation and marginalization through an 'ideal worker' norm. This labour governmentality operates by eliciting consent from historically subordinated workers and eliminating the advantage of historically relatively privileged ones. Unmaking borders within labour inside the organization, this governmentality at the same time crucially rests on borders outside it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines how everyday practices of 'bordering', as conceived by Yuval- Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy (2019) as the ongoing proliferation of border sites where migrants are assessed to be fit for inclusion or exclusion, may violate moral respect by subjecting migrants to a wide array of discriminatory treatment, leading to what I call 'status-harms'. Section II begins by providing an overview of bordering and the various forms it has taken, such as internal immigration checkpoints or even online visa application processes. Section III develops an account of comparative and non-comparative status-harms and why they constitute violations of moral respect. There, I pay special attention to comparative status-harms by proposing three conditions under which a comparative status-harm can be said to have occurred: (a) if an individual or group is singled out for disadvantageous treatment that others are not subjected to on the basis of a socially salient attribute, (b) if the attribute marks them out as inferior relative to those who are not affected thus, and (c) ascriptions of inferior status occur within a morally objectionable social hierarchy where they are targeted by hostile norms and practices centred around that attribute. I then consider how discriminatory practices of bordering routinely imposes status-harms on migrants. Section IV draws a distinction between two types of discrimination that migrants may be subjected to at border sites, which I term policy-based discrimination and procedure-based discrimination, and explores their relationship to the comparative and non-comparative status-harms suffered by migrants. I conclude in Section V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Philip Huynh's short story collection The Forbidden Purple City in relation to its engagement with the nativity–territory–citizenship triad on which Western socio-political communities found the principles of affiliation of their members. First, the Canadian reaffirmation of a discourse of national benevolence is contextualised to later draw on how the collection is nurtured by boundary-crossing ethics that interrogates any sequential relation between past and present, Vietnam and Canada, which usually structures refugee narratives. It is argued then that disruptive and productive time/space interconnections delegitimate any simplistic representations of easily assimilated grateful refugees, fracturing the convenient narration of Canada as a benefactor concerned with old and new international humanitarian causes. The newness of Huynh's stories relies on their mobilisation of the discourse of state citizenship through exceptional migrancy and its disruptive border nature. In contrast to premises of birth and geographical territory, which lose ground as backbones of any affiliation, citizenship appears incomplete and processual. The stories use the precarious performativity of collective homogeneity expected of a former settler colony, like Canada, to launch agency and resistance to state homogenisation, and de-institutionalise the refugee subject to critically intervene sovereignty and political subjectivity. Finally, the stories evince that Canada's social spectrum is ideal to explore the threshold opened by the adjacency of sameness and otherness embodied by Huynh's protagonists. Their condition as diasporic refugee subjects augments the transformative potential of new refugee narratives, in which literal and metaphorical polymorphous borders unveil the bases of the contemporary Canadian socio-political community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the development of the oil industry in the 1860s, petroleum products became increasingly important in economies and shaped the urban form. The impact of oil exploration, exploitation, and transformation led to the creation of districts and cities entirely dedicated to the oil industry. This dynamic relationship between economic activity and urbanization was presented in the shaping of cities and their borders. Although important, the notion of borders and its consequences on the uses of land as well as on the life of inhabitants are often ignored. This paper first conceptualizes the term borders in understanding the interlinkages between oil and other areas closely related, either geographically or for the functioning of the oil industry; it then illustrates the intertwined borders of all these spaces from the contemporary example of the city of Daqing, in Northeast China. The paper answers the question of how past borders designed during the development of Daqing in the 1960s are impacting future planning strategies and the health of local inhabitants? By mapping the current land-use of the city, this paper elaborates on the need to consider borders beyond two-dimensional perspectives by revealing how spatial planning practices in oil-dependent cities can be an environmental issue today and in the future. The objective is to demonstrate the influence of past planning decisions linked to industrial activities on contemporary urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media images of borders and their control have been one of the most dominant frames in reporting on the migrant crisis in European media and the negative coverage of the topic of migrants, presenting them as a threat to security and public health dominates media narratives around the world. This paper examines the way migrants and refugees have been portrayed on the borders of Serbia, a transit country alongside the Western Balkans migration corridor. The mixed method analysis is based on 300 images published in relevant national and regional print media and their online versions from 2015 until 2020. The results show that the visual depiction of walls, wires, control, law and order, modern technological equipment, security providers, and important political authorities have been often intensified with sensational headlines and tabloid coverage and at the same time confronted with images framing migrants as violent and deviant, threatening borders, people, and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the global south, regimes of labour and mobility control are reforming that attempt to manage the northern movement of people. By combining financing development projects with explicit forms of border enforcement (including border personnel training and new securitization technologies), western governments and southern elites attempt to encourage publics (invariably poorer people of colour) to stay in local regions, rather than seek better livelihoods elsewhere. By reference to the USAID funded Centros Quédate or Stay Here Centres in Guatemala, this paper explores the merging of development and migration governance regimes through the concept of "frontiering through development." The paper argues that initiatives such as these fail to consider the root causes of colonialism and imperialism that have long led people to migrate in the first place. Moreover, migration is cast as something problematic under discourses of populist economic nationalist sentiment, rather than beneficial to migrants, country-of-origin and destination regions. However, rather than passive recipients of patronising development, I show how participants rework the Quédate programme to fit their own onward goals. Paternalist development paradigms should take into account how crucial and embedded mobile livelihoods are in present-day realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Europe is usually defined as a 'cleavage' between the East and the West, or as a conflict zone that was affected by two tendencies in its historical past; the idea of unity that implies a homogeneous region and resistance to these efforts, and the struggle for autonomy of the people living in Central Europe. Thus, this dual perception appears in its in-between position that allows adopting Western values while keeping Eastern traditions at the same time. The purpose of the paper is to examine whether the postmodern perception of borders, the problem of a "borderless Europe", and the perception of Orientalism as a critical framework originally aimed at understanding Western (imperialist) mechanisms, can be adapted to grasp identity-building issues in our region. This paper aims to examine how the perception of "East", and "Central" appears in the post-totalitarian world, the legacy of post-colonialism, and the growing geopolitical importance of orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2023 8(1), 22-238 | European Forum Insight of 11 July 2023 | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. Defining migration instrumentalization. - III. Amendments to national legislation against instrumentalization of migration episodes: the cases of Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland. - IV. National emergency measures and their compliance with the fundamental rights framework. - V. EU legislative changes to address the instrumentalisation of migration phenomena. - VI. Concluding remarks. | (Abstract) Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland have amended their legislation to respond to the increased migration flows caused by the policies of instrumentalisation of migrants implemented by the Belarusian government. This Insight illustrates these responses and shows how these EU Member States instrumentalised border tensions with Belarus to adopt restrictive migration policies impacting the rights of people on the move. Such legislative changes follow a paradigm shift at the EU level, in light of which third country nationals who are subject to instrumentalisation are qualified as hybrid threats. As a consequence, EU migration management policies legitimise national restrictive border control measures into the EU legal framework, to prevent the entry of foreign persons into the EU territory. Such a policy approach confirms a chronic inability of the EU to respond effectively and uniformly to mass migration movements, thus driving hostile third States to perpetrate hybrid attacks, such as instrumentalisation of migration practices, to gain political or economic advantages over the EU and its Member States. This Insight argues that EU migration and asylum policies must conform to the highest standards of fundamental rights protection to avert future hybrid attacks in the form of mi-gration instrumentalisation practices. Furthermore, the EU should abandon a securitization rationale that equates people on the move as security threats, thus legitimizing their dehumanisation and dis-regarding their rights.

The buzz of "Big Data" permeates society. This 'new' data, characterised by its volume, variety, velocity, and veracity changes the ways we live, as an increasing number of actors from a variety of sectors in public/private spheres and civilian/military contexts seek ways to operationalise data for value. This paper seeks to offer an additional viewpoint from which we can explain some of the challenges and limitations on the road to data-driven intelligence and its integration in security and intelligence organisations. The scope of this paper is refined to analysing such challenges in the context of border security, although similar challenges might and do appear in other applications and fields. An auto ethnographic approach is adopted as a way to illustrate and remind that the data we collect, process, and store is data about people, and further, how we choose to use (or not use) this data has implications for people. The bottom line of this work is that as we pave and forge towards data driven intelligence, we must acknowledge and remember that the road both starts and ends with human intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porous borders continue to be the principal source and conduit for small arms and light weapons (SALWs) throughout Africa, particularly Nigeria. Presently, Nigeria's security environment is severely endangered by the operations of the Boko Haram insurgent group, which often uses smuggled firearms and ammunition. Scholars have paid little attention to analyzing the smuggling problem in SALWs and their threat to Nigeria's internal security amid the Boko Haram menace. This study addresses the SALWs smuggling, and Boko Haram challenges to Nigerian security by using the Benin-Nigerian Porous Border as a case study. This paper discovers that the porous Nigeria-Benin border and the lackadaisical attitude of both governments have enabled transnational crime of the Boko-Haram sect. The paper recommends adequate coordination between security services and residents to battle the scourge of cross-border proliferation of small guns and light weapons between Benin and Nigeria. This study recommends a West African regional security network structure to regulate borders and coordinate security to curb SALWs and other criminal activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was inspired by empirical encounters with students and teacher-administrators who engaged with an online European education initiative, which raised questions about whether and how their practices were situated as local, transnational, or national(ist) endeavors. The conceptual, theoretical, and methodological resources of social topology and critical border studies guided our inquiry by a focus on bordering practices and how these generate spatiotemporal forms and movements, and evoked a typical national form which is characterized as a singular, stable, linear, and flat "topography." An innovative methodology is deployed to scrutinize how practices with this online, European initiative continue, challenge or complement that typical national form. The findings demonstrate how the use of topographical indexes and tropes (re-)materialized characteristics of these typical national forms, while the combination with topological relations introduced multiplicities and "levels" in these forms. Moreover, spherical forms, bouncing movements, and tunneling movements challenged the singularity, stability, linearity, and flatness of the typical national form. Building on these findings, the paper sets forth the argument that this online European education initiative mainly challenges the enactment of nationalism in classrooms by encouraging learning and thinking through translocalities, which accentuates distances and differences that are being crossed without appealing to the typical imaginary of the "nation" with linear, stable, flat borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Anuario de Historia Regional y de las Fronteras is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2012, Professor Sonja de Leeuw discussed how the Archival Turn will allow four developments to happen, among which was the possibility for research to cross national borders, allowing more transnational and European research. Now, roughly 10 years after the article was published, is a good moment to see how far on this journey we currently are. This article maps out these four developments with emphasis on the 'European-ness' of current research, to show the remaining bottlenecks such as language barriers, and funding and accessibility issues. A discussion with members of FIAT/IFTA held in 2021 will show how collaborative research can be one way to improve conditions for transnational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from processes of autonomous community organization in Mexico, this paper will interrogate and rethink the borders and boundaries of autonomy. Rather than articulating autonomy as some fully separated space with clearly delineated borders, this paper will show how struggles for autonomy in Mexico are constantly navigating their insides and outsides, organizing and inhabiting the border or boundary space. With this, we can begin to reconceptualize autonomy without state-like borders as something in constant movement. In the same way, we can begin to take seriously the complexities and intricacies of autonomous struggles as they play out in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article investigates the role of the Israeli border in the process of criminalising Palestinians. Defining Israel in contrast to the Arab 'terrorists', waiting to attack, necessitates a grand, looming settler-colonial border and the sequestration of an entire population behind a manufactured prison. The justification for this form of border 'control' is made possible by the historic truths established by the West in the colonial era. The paper outlines this understanding of Arabs as a 'bestial', 'bellicose' group that thrives in conflict situations. It moves on to note that the consequence of this characterisation is the global, all-encompassing understanding of the Arab threat. It finally narrows the border wall down as an Israeli tool of segregation, justified by understandings of a racialised, 'threatening Arab'. The Israeli 'defence' of its borders will be reimagined from a Southern perspective as an oppressive system of segregation justified by the ways in which Arabs have historically been constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Uganda and South Africa were quick to respond to the global pandemic – Uganda for example imposing quarantine on foreign travellers after only a handful of cases before shutting off all international flights, and South Africa imposing one of the first lockdowns on the continent. Reflecting on the first 6 months of the pandemic responses in terms of refugee protection, the two countries have taken diverging pathways. South Africa used the pandemic to start building a border fence on the border with Zimbabwe, initially curtailed all foreign shop owners from opening under lockdown and excluded asylum seekers from emergency relief grants. In contrast, Uganda opened its borders to refugees from the DRC in June, when border closures were still the global norm. Whilst both responses are not unusual in light of their standard governance approaches, they highlight the own self-image the countries espouse – with Uganda positioning itself as the world's premier refugee protector at a time when it is desperately in need of more funds and South Africa looking to politically capitalize internally from reiterating a division between migrant communities as a threat to poor and disenfranchised South Africans. Even during a pandemic, the practice of refugee protection does not happen in a political vacuum. This paper is based on over 50 in-person and digital interviews conducted in Uganda and South Africa in 2020, as well as nine focus groups with refugee and host communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to highlight some implications of the creation of closed, culturally alien communities and the possible consequences of their functioning from a criminological and victimological perspective. Various processes emerging since about the second half of the 20th century, in Europe as well as in the United States of America, have caused cultural transformations leading to the emergence of cultural pluralism (polyculturalism, multiculturalism) in various forms. This represents one of the greatest challenges of the modern world on many levels, including prophylaxis and crime prevention. Of particular concern is the issue of assessing the behaviour of an offender belonging to a closed, culturally different group. variants of such a situation can be considered – when the perpetrator and the victim belong to culturally different communities or the same one, and depending on whether the perpetrator's behaviour constitutes an act judged negatively in the closed group to which they belong or whether it fulfils the characteristics of a crime in the legal system of the external community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monstrosity is a constant presence in Old English literature. In particular, Wonders of the East depicts everything that was perceived as strange, significantly located in the East, displaying a Mediterranean-centric perspective where Europe works as the ideal centre of the cosmos. Early English Medieval people adopted this notion, which, however, seems to consign the island to the margins of civilization. This paper investigates how the position of Britain at the border of the map impacted the perceived degree of civilization of the Early Medieval English people and how their geographical location might have imbued the idea of Englishness with monstrosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the beginning, this paper firstly analyses the duality of borders, as a place of contact and a place of misunderstandings, tensions, and quite often, of open conflicts, and this is done from two points of view: social and security. The first one refers to social foundations of a border, widely accepted as mutual recognition of one's self and others, while the second dimension brings to the forefront the strong analogy between borders and walls. As the first aspect most often relates to wider social engagement, the second is closely tied to security element of border management, or the securing of the phenomenon and reacting to it using a range of repressive "tools". It is the second dimension of the observation of the problem that leads us to the world of contemporary walls in front of (and around) which different relations occur with pronounced (in)security. The focal issue of this paper is the extent to which the current walls are the factor of safety, and to what extent they generate instability. On the basis of the conducted research procedure, this paper concludes that walls reinforce the sovereignty claim of a state, but they cannot be an efficient security measure for the inhabitants of border areas and members of migrant population.

The paper discusses the size, shape and borders as a factor in the security of the territory of the Republic of Serbia. The illegal secession of Kosovo and Metohija represents an important security challenge that affects in a qualitative and quantitative sense the size, shape and border of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the defensive sensitivity of the territory. The problem was researched in the military-geographical and political-geographical domains. An analytical and synthetic approach was applied in the research of the problem through the comparison of the territory of the Republic of Serbia with the previous states that existed in our area in modern history. Graphical-analytical method as a general geographical method was applied in the consideration of qualitative and quantitative mathematical indicators of the territory. The research results showed that the small size, irregular shape and highly curved borders represent a problem for the defence of the territory of the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Serbia, with an area of 88.361 km², ranks among small countries. The illegal secession of Kosovo and Metohija reduces the total area of the territory of the Republic of Serbia by 10.887 km². In a potential war conflict or aggression on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, space as a strategic factor of war would have a reduced importance for defence. Any loss of territory can have strategic implications for the entire course of the war. The semi-collected form acquires a southwest and southeast bulge corridor. From the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, the most core areas of the Republic of Serbia, such as the Pan-European transport corridor X can be threatened. The length of the border line to NATO members is 83.7% and 16.3% to militarily neutral states. The border shape coefficient is 1.98, which indicates a high degree of curvature of the border. Recommendations are given in the paper, the implementation of which would reduce the unfavourable geostrategic aspects of the size, shape and borders of the territory. Republic of Serbia. The priority is to change the strategic concept of defence, new military-territorial reorganization, demographic, cultural and geo-economic strengthening of the most sensitive parts of the territory of the Republic of Serbia.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(1), 127-149 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. Introduction. - II. "Immigration courts as border zones": courts and judicial interactions in the field of irregular migration. - III. "Is it a crime to be a foreigner?": courts reconfiguring the borders between criminal law and the return directive. - IV. Detention as a tool to "reconfigure and relocate national borders": judicial interactions turning the liberty of irregular migrants into a human right. - V. "Speaking rights to power": judicial interactions on the legal and social exclusion of irregular immi-grants. - VI. Conclusions: Future challenges to judicial interactions. | (Abstract) This Article examines the dynamics between shifting borders - the border as a legal construct instead of a geographical barrier - and law by analysing the role of courts and judicial interactions in the implementation of the Return Directive in Europe. We argue that legislation that states may have introduced primarily to shift and reinvigorate their borders nevertheless holds a promise of opening up more, instead of less, space for legal claims for migrant justice, especially if such legislation is applied by judges across different legal orders. We look at the impact of judicial interactions by European and domestic courts on the Return Directive in three areas in which states have attempted to shift their borders for maintaining irregular migration within exclusive domestic competences: the merging of criminal justice and immigration policing; detention as immigration enforcement; and the legal and social exclusion of irregular migrants. We show that in all these fields, judicial interactions have set into motion a process of incremental constitutionalisation of irregular migration in Europe in two ways. First, such interactions have resulted in extended judicial review over a legal field which has traditionally been considered an exceptional branch of law under the purview of executive control. Secondly, they have allowed irregularly staying migrants, as a group largely excluded from the legal and political processes that characterise modern constitutionalism, to have their interests translated into rights that can be litigated and enforced. By focusing on judicial interactions regarding immigration enforcement, this Article fills a gap in contemporary research on the role of courts in immigration policy which has so far predominantly analysed adjudication of immigration status.

(Series Information) European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2022 7(1), 87-108 | Article | (Table of Contents) I. EU's shifting borders: an introduction. - II. Protecting borders and respecting human rights. - II.1. How to reconcile diverging constitutional objectives in light of hybridity and informality? - II.2. Which way forward with accountability? - III. EU's external borders: of administrative integration and the physical and legal infrastructures of deflection. - III.1. Hotspots as incubators of liminality and of an emerging European integrated administration. - III.2. Beyond hotspots: securitisation and deflection of "risky" migrants. - III.3. Screening, border asylum procedures, and streamlined returns: what's "new" in the new pact on migration and asylum? - IV. Overview of contributions. | (Abstract) Borders have gone far beyond their traditional static function of merely demarcating nation-states. Alongside physical border barriers, such as walls and barbwire fences, new technologies driven by sophisticated legal innovations have contributed to the multiplicity of border controls. These legal techniques have turned the border into an individualised moving barrier, conceptualized as a "shifting border" by Ayelet Shachar. Against this backdrop, this Article introduces, conceptually and thematically, the contributions to this Special Section which critically assess the paradigm of the shifting border in the EU and analyse its implications. We first map out intricate legal issues invoked by the rise of hybridity and informality in the EU's cooperation with third countries on migration and the resulting accountability deficit. Next, we scrutinize the physical and legal infrastructures of mobility regulation (and often deflection) that are currently employed at the EU's external territorial borders. We highlight the emergence of increasing horizontal (between the EU and national level) and vertical (across national levels) administrative integration as a prevailing mode of policy implementation at the EU's borders and reflect on the implications, including both challenges and opportunities, of this development. Finally, we scrutinise the Commission's proposals as part of a New Pact on Migration and Asylum with respect to the envisaged processes at the borders and the streamlining of external border control, asylum, and return in a seamless process finding that they create further risks for fundamental rights and procedural guarantees.

In this paper, the construction of landscape is contoured by its negation of non-landscape, making visible a space of meaning that we call pillepallescapes. Pillepallescapes is understood, among other things, as a secondary meaning that can often lead to disputes about its relevance, thus revealing ambiguous polyvalences in the quest to unify the world. We introduce pillepall to the context of landscape studies for elements which, from certain perspectives, appear to be insignificant to these landscape constructions. However, it is at these borderlines of meaningfulness - the pillepallescapes, the object of what oscillates between landscape and non-landscape - that conflicts over landscape interpretive sovereignty seem to spark. When framed neopragmatically, this contribution self-ironically opens up a relevant extension for landscape research, from which methodologicalanalytical, as well as cartographic innovation potentials, can be derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the multifaceted dimensions of landlockedness within the realm of international discourse, with a particular focus on its implications for managing global commons. Drawing from socio-legal literature and auto-ethnographic experiences during the recent intergovernmental negotiations for the BBNJ agreement under the 1982 Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as a case study, the paper prompts essential inquiries into the true essence of being landlocked in the face of global environmental challenges. Beyond traditional geographical definitions, the paper reveals the dynamic nature of landlockedness and underscores the intricate interplay of social, economic, cultural, geographical, and political factors in determining who has access to ocean space and resources and who does not. It emphasizes that landlockedness is not a static legal or physical characteristic but an ongoing process shaped by historical and political constructs. Expanding beyond the national level, the article illustrates how individuals, whether coastal or inland, experience isolation from the ocean, influencing their interactions with, perceptions of, and regulatory proposals for the ocean. This approach illuminates existing paradigms in the access, use, and management of space and resources. In conclusion, the article advocates for more inclusive and adaptable approaches in international policy debates. It calls for a departure from rigid classifications, urging for upholding collective action, recognising the intricate connections between geography, politics, law, and the environment.

This paper discusses the discourse strategies used by former US President Donald Trump in the tweets in which he discusses the construction of the wall between the US and Mexico. Border walls play a very important role in today's world in that they characterise discourses of exclusion and othering in geopolitical and cultural terms and indicate a revival of nationalism. By employing Proximization Theory, this paper shows how certain lexico-grammatical features of Trump's tweets contribute to a nationalist and populist discourse which legitimises the construction of the wall on the basis of the threat coming from an "Other". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper takes an institutional approach to the development of cross-border regional innovation systems (CBRISs). It argues that the nation-state border is expressed through institutional hindrances that negatively influence cross-border cooperation processes. The concept of multilevel institutional architecture (MLIA) is introduced to improve understandings of the border as the nexus between institutions engaged in regional innovation systems. Through a case study analysis of the Venlo-Lower Rhine region, the paper investigates how a nation-state border impedes the build up of systemic cross-border relations that underpin the development of CBRISs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the present status of the Polish language in the Ukrainian city of Ivano- Frankivsk (formerly Stanislaviv) and the challenges which it faces. The Polish language is a minority language in the city. National identity statistics from the censuses of 1931 and 2001 are analysed. The paper examines the following institutions and areas of Polish language usage and vitality: the activities of the Centre for Polish Culture and European Dialogue in Ivano-Frankivsk, Polish societies, religion, family and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the history of two islands of the Danube River, their movements due to the hydrodynamics of the river and the geopolitical consequences of these movements. The paper shows the process through which the Danube with its hydrological dynamics became a historical actor that provoked military actions, shifted political borders and was the source of intense diplomatic debates between Romania and Bulgaria at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The paper attempts to contribute to a stream of theory generally known as posthumanism by bringing to the forefront historical facts from the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth. It also contributes to enriching the environmental history of Southeast Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Galician Journal of Economics / Revista Galega de Economía is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English & Cultural Studies is the property of Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, CCE Departamento de Pos-Graduacao em Lingua Englesa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of ANIAV: Revista de Investigación en Artes Visuales is the property of Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper looks at the discursive construction of the concept of border and its interaction with identity in two exclusionary populist movements: Lega in Italy and Vox in Spain. The study, based on the analysis of an ad hoc selection of discourses by the two parties' leaders, applies clause-based semantic text analysis to detect the main discursive representations of the "us" and the "others" as threatening ontological security and the performative role played by borders as the ultimate (de)Fence for identity. Results show that Matteo Salvini focuses his discourse on the manipulation of physical space, representing Italy as the space for Italians and proposing to "close the borders" as the only way to stop the "invasion". Santiago Abascal, on his side, constructs Spanish identity as inherently and proudly "anti-Islamic". Borders, therefore, are invalicable for those considered incompatible with local values, namely "Muslims", represented as a "natural threat" to Spanish identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of e-Scripta Romanica is the property of Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper analyzes the policy of the Delegation of the Kingdom of SCS at the Peace Conference in Versailles in respect ofVojvodina, which was incorporated into the Kingdom of Serbia by the decision of the Grand National Assembly in Novi Sad dated November 25, 1918, and joined the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The introductory part of the paper summarizes issues important for the work of the Delegation in territorial matters. External factors that posed an objective threat to the Delegation’s policy regarding Vojvodina were analyzed afterwards. The paper further discusses internal factors that disturbed the construction of the unique views of the Yugoslav Delegation in Versailles against Vojvodina. Different concepts on the borders of the Yugoslav state in the Delegation and the work of the Ethnographic Section which was especially significant in determining the territory ofVojvodina and demarcation with neighboring countries were both analyzed. On the basis of these analyzes in the final discussions were given some specific conclusions, as well as an a general assessment of the work of the Delegation of the Kingdom of SCS in Versailles regarding Vojvodina was given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper is focused on how the "migration crisis" starting in 2015 in Europe have reshaped the attitude to the European level of border protection. The basic question is how different are the competences of European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCG) from the previous FRONTEX and what was the role sovereignty played in it. The paper has a character of a qualitative study where the authors compare the proposal for EBCG, mainly its Article 18 establishing the "right to intervene" in the proposal, with the final version of the document and analyzes the position of the Member states based on their posititions within the Council to the parts of the proposal that were most connected to sovereignty. The analysis is based on data collection from officials from various member states that were part of the negotiations. Apart from this "hidden agenda" the authors also analyze public statements by high-ranking government officials that often commented on the proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing interest towards researching other forms of knowledges is taking place, expanding the boundaries of knowledge to include forms that have been historically marginalised, negated, and neglected by the Western academy. Parallel to this, we have identified a rising critique of how voices marginalized by colonial modes of academic knowledge production are included, through a single-sided focus on pain and suffering (Tuck & Yang 2014). Yet there are less discussions around the process of research itself and what it entails. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to challenge the concept of 'discovery' and the unproblematic and inherent right of knowing granted to the Western academy, to argue for a kind of research that refuses. Interrogating instances of refusal in different contexts of Indigenous sovereignty and migration studies, this collective work creates a dialogue across different disciplines and reveals that refusal turns the gaze at colonial modalities of knowing. The empirical analysis of our work also demonstrates that refusal is a generative process that redirects the attention to ideas otherwise unacknowledged, thus making space for relationality, reciprocity, solidarity, community, and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new partnership project aims to create a guide to decoloniality for use in Ukraine, the UK and globally. Decoloniality – a developing practice in the UK and elsewhere – is essential for the long-term protection of cultural heritage in Ukraine and other countries impacted by Russian colonial rule. By encouraging readers to question long-held assumptions about Russia’s role as a colonizing power, the guide will act as a tool for specialists and non-specialists struggling to accurately identify and describe cultural heritage from Eastern Europe. At the time of writing, planning for this pilot project is at an early stage, but the guide is envisaged as a much-needed step towards enhancing global perspectives on the rich cultural heritage of this often misunderstood and underrepresented region. This paper focuses on two key challenges we face in embarking on this one-year project: concepts of nationality in a region with historically shifting borders and issues surrounding language, terminology and transliteration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tasks of documenting and narrating stories of climate change and border environments have become increasingly urgent in recent years, and discussions around effective approaches to environmental storytelling have intensified accordingly. The film Char... The No Man's Island (2012), directed by Sourav Sarangi, is a noteworthy example of a work that seeks to represent one such unstable environment that exists on the border between India and Bangladesh and to explore the daily lives of the beings who inhabit it. Although the documentary has a specific regional focus, its scope is far from limited, as the film examines various dimensions of life in this border environment as well as the historical and political factors that have led to the current realities of the space and the communities established there. In this paper, I examine how Sarangi's inclusion of a multitude of distinct human and non-human perspectives throughout the film signals a move towards a form of environmental storytelling grounded in the notion of a collective, wherein narrative agency is distributed amongst multiple entities rather than invested in a single individual. Moreover, the paper argues that the usage of these various perspectives also enables Char to depict alternate temporalities and experiences of time which contrast heavily with ideas of linear time and progress and invites audiences to consider the multifaceted temporal and spatial realities of life in a precarious border environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Queer Temporality, international assemblages and transfeminism for historians: (Post-)queer discourses revisited. Closely intertwined with political activism, queer studies have evolved as a vast feld of knowledge, and offering an overview of the literature -- as is presented here -- poses considerable challenges. Addressing concepts of time, place, and subjectivity, the author highlights some of the more recent "turns" within queer theories and reflects upon their impact on historical research. One key trend is the way in which embodied and affective temporalities figure prominently among new queer concepts. One of the self-reflexive conclusions that have been formulated by and for historians deals with the question of what kind of relations scholars are supposed to cultivate with 'queers' of the past. A second development within queer theories emerged in the aftermath of 9/11, when national(ist) productions of racialized and sexualized others moved to the centre of queer analysis; the term "homonationalism" widely gained authority. In relation to the history and presence of international asymmetries, the paper raises questions about queer perspectives on geopolitical power relations and the ongoing challenges of doing justice to post-colonial criticism. A third "turn" originates from transgender activism and trans theory, particularly trans*feminism, as promoted by French, Spanish and other "non-US" authors. In this regard, the paper discusses consequences of a queer trans*feminist approach to subject formations, border theories, and embodied reading in historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the current travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic imposed by the countries from South-East Europe and briefly compare them with those imposed by the Central European countries. By using official data collection of displacement tracking matrices and analyzing the porosity of the borders in this part of Europe, we research the impact of COVID-19 on human mobility and the related economic and social aspects. Discussions are presented regarding this impact on the travelers, the seasonal workers from some of the selected countries, and the immigrants from the Middle-East. A formal analysis is performed relating the current travel restrictions and the travel ban during the iron curtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine the harmony between the Polish and the Hungarian foreign policy from the early 20th century to the recent decades. Due to their special geographical position both states experienced threats and challenges in the examined period, however their approach to the above was different. Poland was focusing on the problem of the rebirth o f the divided state and the uncertainty regarding its borders while Hungary had to struggle with the peaceful revision of the lost territories. Being located between two ambitious great powers Poland and Hungary had to find balance between German and Russian (Soviet) aspirations that influenced the foreign policy of both states. This paper treats Poland as a reference point and examines the Hungarian struggles from this approach. The paper also gives an outline definition of the meaning o f borders and their importance in Central and Eastern European region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central Europe is usually defined as a ‘cleavage’ between the East and the West, or as a conflict zone that was affected by two tendencies in its historical past; the idea of unity that implies a homogeneous region and resistance to these efforts, and the struggle for autonomy of the people living in Central Europe. Thus, this dual perception appears in its in-between position that allows adopting Western values while keeping Eastern traditions at the same time. The purpose of the paper is to examine whether the postmodern perception of borders, the problem of a “borderless Europe”, and the perception of Orientalism as a critical framework originally aimed at understanding Western (imperialist) mechanisms, can be adapted to grasp identity-building issues in our region. This paper aims to examine how the perception of “East”, and “Central” appears in the post-totalitarian world, the legacy of post-colonialism, and the growing geopolitical importance of orientation.