Border Studies

The many travels of Dopdi Mejhen: Women, borders and the Indian state

by Abhijit Roy

Essay to be published in a collection tentatively titled 'Women & Literature: Different Faces Different Voices' ed. Nandini Jana and Swati Mitra, Stree, Calcutta. (forthcoming, 2012)
                                                             

Extract:
The grand discourse simultaneously legitimizing coercion and communicative rationality in dealing with... more Extract:
The grand discourse simultaneously legitimizing coercion and communicative rationality in dealing with the forces threatening the state apparatus is the statist discourse of ‘security’. While coercion is endorsed in the name of security for the citizens, the communicative (and reformative) modes of negotiation with the ‘other’ are apparently also for the security of the outlaw, enabling the state to pose as ‘democratic’ or sensitive to the rights of both the ‘citizen’ proper and the outlaw willing to be part of a citizenizing process. It doesn’t take much strain to identify the imbalance in such apparently symmetrical propositions: the right and privileges of the citizen proper are unquestionable and due, while the same on the other side of the line are debatable and a matter of generosity. Brutal state repression can then be justified by the double logic of citizen’s security and parallel “humanitarian” negotiation. In a majoritarianist system that is Democracy, the project of communicative rationality and reform in the negotiation with a minority group, parallel to coercion, would therefore always more successfully legitimize state violence than contradicting it.

The Multilingual Pleasures of Slavic Worlds

by Anne Dwyer

Forthcoming in _Comparative Literature_2013

The confession of a timber baron: Patterns of patronage on the Indonesian-Malaysian border

by Michael Eilenberg

Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power [Taylor & Francis] 2012, First-view 8 May.

This article explores the socio-economic significance of patronage at the edge of the Indonesian state. It argues that... more This article explores the socio-economic significance of patronage at the edge of the Indonesian state. It argues that marginal borders and adjacent borderlands where state institutions are often weak, and state power continuously waxes and wanes, encourage the growth of non-state forms of authority based on long-standing patron–client relationships. These complex interdependencies become especially potent because of traditionally rooted patterns of respect, charismatic leadership and a heightened sense of autonomy among borderland populations. The article contends that an examination of these informal arrangements is imperative for understanding the rationale behind border people's often fluid loyalties and illicit cross-border practices, strained relationships with their nation states and divergent views of legality and illegality. The article contributes to recent anthropological studies of borders and believes that these studies could gain important insight by re-examining the concept of patronage as an analytical tool in uncovering circuits of licit and illicit exchange in borderlands.

Straddling the border : A marginal history of guerilla warfare and 'counter-insurgency' in the Indonesian borderlands

by Michael Eilenberg

Modern Asian Studies [Cambridge University Press] 2011, Vol 45 (6): 1423–1463.

Post-independence ethnic minorities inhabiting the Southeast Asian borderlands were willingly or unwillingly pulled... more Post-independence ethnic minorities inhabiting the Southeast Asian borderlands were willingly or unwillingly pulled into the macro politics of territoriality and state formation. The rugged and hilly borderlands delimiting the new nation-states became battlefronts of state-making and spaces of confrontation between divergent political ideologies. In the majority of the Southeast Asian borderlands, this implied violent disruption in the lives of local borderlanders that came to affect their relationship to their nation-state. A case in point is the ethnic Iban population living along the international border between the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan and the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. Based on local narratives, the aim of this paper is to unravel the little known history of how the Iban segment of the border population in West Kalimantan became entangled in the highly militarized international disputes with neighbouring Malaysia in the early 1960s, and in subsequent military co-operative ‘anti-communist’ ‘counter-insurgency’ efforts by the two states in the late 1960–1970s. This paper brings together facets of national belonging and citizenship within a borderland context with the aim of understanding the historical incentives behind the often ambivalent, shifting and unruly relationship between marginal citizens like the Iban borderlanders and their nation-state.

Negotiating autonomy at the margins of the state : The dynamics of elite politics in the borderland of West Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Michael Eilenberg

South East Asia Research [University of London Press, SOAS] 2009, Vol. 17(2): 201-227. 

Recent processes of decentralization have dramatically changed local political configurations and access to resources... more Recent processes of decentralization have dramatically changed local political configurations and access to resources throughout Indonesia. In particular, the resource-rich regions at the margins of the state have, in the name of regional autonomy, experienced new spaces for manoeuvre in their claims for a larger share of forest resources. By stressing the unfolding relationship between local ethnic elites and the state, and their different strategies in negotiating and claiming authority over forests within Indonesia's changing forest regimes, the paper examines how local-level politics has taken on its special configuration in the remote border region of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. The author demonstrates this by focusing on the ongoing struggle over forest resources and by tracking the fate of a political movement for a new district in this resource-rich region. The paper further examines how current local elite strategies and networks can be related back to the period of border militarization in the 1960s and, once again, how these seem to challenge the exclusivity of the Indonesian-Malaysian border. The main argument is that central authority in the borderland has never been absolute, but waxes and wanes, and thus that state rules and laws are always up for local interpretation and negotiation, although the degree of such negotiation changes depending on the strength of the central state.

Claiming authority at the edges of the state : Regional autonomy and local politics in the West Kalimantan borderlands

by Michael Eilenberg

Indonesian Studies Working Papers, Sydney University, No. 7. September 2008.

This paper examines state-local relations in the border region of West Kalimantan since decentralisation, with a focus... more This paper examines state-local relations in the border region of West Kalimantan since decentralisation, with a focus on five ethnic Iban dominated subdistricts within the remote district of Kapuas Hulu, on the border of the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It tracks the fate of a political movement for a new district in this resource-rich reason, arguing that the borderlands can be seen as a critical site for exemplifying the changing dynamics of state-local interactions that Indonesia is experiencing in the wake of decentralisation.

Vigilantes and gangsters in the borderlands of West Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Michael Eilenberg

Co-authored with Reed Lee Wadley

In: Alexander Horstmann (ed.): State, Peoples and Borders in Southeast Asia. A special Issue of the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia [Kyoto University Press], Vol. 7: 1-25. 2006.

Borderlands have long been the sites of violence, the result either of government incapacity or disinterest in... more Borderlands have long been the sites of violence, the result either of government incapacity or disinterest in peripheral regions, or of occasional attempts by states to assert control over “recalcitrant” border peoples (Paredes 1958; Wadley 2004). Borderland lawlessness, or the ambiguous space between state law, provides often fertile ground for activities deemed illicit by one or both states—smuggling and tax-evasion, for example (Tagliacozzo 2001). Border space may also allow the growth of local leadership built on those illegal activities and maintained through patronage and violence (McCoy 1999). In such situations, border peoples often enjoy a fair measure of autonomy from state interference, which may exacerbate their already ambiguous relations with either state (Martinez 1994a). In this paper, we examine issues of lawlessness and autonomy in the stretch of the West Kalimantan borderland inhabited by the Iban (Figure 1), with attention to recent incidents of vigilantism and gangsterism, and to how the ambiguity and separateness engendered by the border promotes and enhances these practices. Obviously, vigilantism and gangsterism are general phenomena throughout Indonesia but, as we show, the configuration of the borderland gives these phenomena their unique shapes here.

Living with multiple borders

by Joris Schapendonk

The European Union’s soutern borderlands are spaces where the politics of mobilities (Cresswell 2010) becomes... more The European Union’s soutern borderlands are spaces where the politics of mobilities (Cresswell 2010) becomes explicitly visible; some mobilities are passing through without much interference, while others are traced, slowed down and blocked. This paper  discusses social life of a particular group of migrants whose mobility is hindered by the hard borders of the EU: Sub-Saharan African ‘transit migrants’ in Morocco and Turkey. By focusing on migrants’ in/visibility, im/mobility and dis/connections, I stress that migrants are not simply immobile actors who are only passively waiting ‘in transit’. Instead, mobility in general, and border crossings in particular, belong to the tactics of migrants that help them dealing with the restrictive socio-political environment they live in. I show how these everyday tactics contribute to the making and re-making of borderlands. With these insights, I criticize the notion of borderlands as consisting of two (or more) territorial entities that are seperated by the border. Instead, I plead for a relational understanding of borderlands (Massey 2005; Amin 2002) as spaces where various spatio-temporal trajectories come together for different duration. Hence, multiple borders come together in single borderlands.

Odessa et les confins de l’Europe: un éclairage historique (Odessa and the frontier of Europe: a historical perspective)

by Stella Ghervas

published in Stella Ghervas & François Rosset (eds), "Lieux d’Europe. Mythes et limites" (Places of Europe: Myths and Limits), Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2008, pp. 107-124.

Réactualisée par le récent débat sur l'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne et par la crise ukrainienne, la... more Réactualisée par le récent débat sur l'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne et par la crise ukrainienne, la question des confins de l'Europe apparaît de manière contrastée dans le cas d'une ville comme Odessa. Dès son origine, elle a été conçue comme une ville libre et ouverte tout en servant de capitale à la Nouvelle Russie. Construite à l'européenne par des architectes français, elle a vu d'emblée s'installer différentes communautés nationales, et Pouchkine a pu dire à juste titre qu'on y «respire l'Europe».

Néanmoins, Odessa reste d'un point de vue géographique «doublement périphérique» par rapport à la Russie et à l'Europe. Tout au long du XIXe siècle, on y «exile» les intellectuels exclus des capitales de l'Empire des tsars. La ville prospère, mais de Paris, Londres ou Berlin, elle paraît en marge de l'Europe urbaine et culturelle. En 1847, Balzac ne vit lui-même «de la frontière européenne à Odessa qu'un même champ de la Beauce». Le triomphe de la révolution bolchevique introduira une véritable coupure dans l'histoire de la ville et de ses relations avec l'Europe.

Par un jeu de miroirs, le cas d'une ville-carrefour comme Odessa, lieu emblématique d'une Europe multiculturelle et multinationale, dit quelque chose du sens multiple de l'Europe, témoigne de ses déchirements et de ses conflits intérieurs. Elle permet aussi de mieux cerner les contenus de la civilisation européenne et de préciser les contours du Vieux Continent.

Grenze

by Ulf Scharrer

Co-authored with Judith Miggelbrink, Jürgen Paul, Daniel Syrbe,
in: Annegret Nippa (ed.), Kleines ABC des Nomadismus, Hamburg 2011, p. 82-83

Borderzones of Enforcement: Criminalization, Workplace Raids, and Migrant Counterconducts

by Jonathan Xavier Inda

The Value of Immigrant Life

by Jonathan Xavier Inda

'Catch and Remove': Detention, Deterrence, and Discipline in US Noncitizen Family Detention Practice

by Lauren Martin

Critical security scholars have argued that biometric identity technologies, databanking, digital surveillance, and... more Critical security scholars have argued that biometric identity technologies, databanking, digital surveillance, and risk analysis reveal not a blockaded boundary but a border that follows transboundary migrants as they move within and between national territories. Managed through risk-based technologies, this networked, contingent border respatialises inclusion and exclusion, forming a border that is potentially everywhere and nowhere in particular. At the same time, immigration scholars have shown how immigration authorities deploy policing, inspection, and identification practices both within and beyond territorial boundaries, making life increasingly uncertain for noncitizens. In the US, Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) authority to detain noncitizens has become a key spatial strategy in domestic counter-terrorism, interior immigration enforcement and border securitisation. Thus, transboundary migration and state responses to it trouble analytic distinctions between domestic and foreign policy, immigration and national security, the border and the interior. This paper builds on recent work in immigration geopolitics to analyse how detention, in particular, works to contain individual migrants and deter future migrants. Focusing on noncitizen family detention, this article situates US noncitizen detention in a broader milieu of pre-9/11 US immigration enforcement law and post-9/11 security practices. I then analyse how detention congeals a number of spatial strategies – remoteness, isolation, spatial ordering, inter-centre transfers, and criminalisation – that work to destabilise migrants' support networks. Modulated with digitised border and identity surveillance technologies, detention foregrounds the persistence of disciplinary tactics in risk-dominated security regimes.

Securitization of the U.S.-Canada Border in American Discourse

by Mark Salter

Genevieve Piche

In this paper, the authors analyze the empirical process of securitization of the US–Canada border and then reflect on... more In this paper, the authors analyze the empirical process of securitization of the US–Canada border and then reflect on the model proposed by the Copenhagen School. We argue that securitization theory oversimplifies the political process of securitizing moves and audience acceptance. Rather than attributing securitization to a singular speaker addressing a
specific audience, we present overlapping and ongoing language security games performed by varying relevant actors during the key period between the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act ~IRTPA! in December 2004 and the signing of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America ~SPP! in June 2005, showing how multiple speakers participate in the continuing construction of a context in which this issue is increasingly treated as a matter of security. We also explore the language adopted by participants in the field, focusing on an expert panel convened by the Homeland Security Institute. We conclude that in the securitization of the US–Canada border there are inconsistencies between truth and discourse, as well as significant distinctions between official and bureaucratic discourses, further emphasizing the
importance of a comprehensive model of securitization.

Les Albanais en Grèce : le rôle des réseaux préexistants

by Pierre Sintès

Depuis le début des années 1990, la migration des travailleurs albanais vers la Grèce est un des phénomènes... more Depuis le début des années 1990, la migration des travailleurs albanais vers la Grèce est un des phénomènes démographiques majeurs du Sud de la péninsule balkanique. Ce flux concernerait en effet un groupe de 600 à 800 000 personnes. Les Albanais constituent l'immense majorité des étrangers sur le sol grec et sont à l'origine de la transformation de ce pays en une des premières terres d'accueil de l'Union européenne proportionnellement à sa population. Les Albanais sont ainsi présents sur l'ensemble de territoire grec et occupent, pour la plupart, les segments les plus précaires du marché du travail. Les logiques qui président à leur répartition semblent bien être dictées par la géographie de l'emploi, la grande majorité se concentrant dans la ville d'Athènes et dans les campagnes offrant de nombreux emplois agricoles tant saisonniers que permanents. Cependant, à l'échelle plus fine du récit de vie, on est en mesure de remettre en question la vision simpliste qui ferait de la géographie migratoire un simple calque de celle de l'économie grecque. En effet, pour des individus ou des groupes plus restreints, la logique de l'implantation a été largement conditionnée par l'existence de réseaux familiaux transfrontaliers qui, après être restés en veille durant toute la période hoxhiste, ont été réactivés à partir des années 1990. La mise en avant d'un tel phénomène permet de mesurer l'importance des liens entre les deux pays dans la structure de la migration pour redonner, dans certains cas, l'importance qu'ils méritent à des facteurs particuliers dans le système de choix que constitue la migration.

Psychoanalytic Theory and Border Security

by Mark Salter

with Can Mutlu

Freezing is a common sign of panic, a response to accidents or events that overflow our capacity to react. Just as all... more Freezing is a common sign of panic, a response to accidents or events that overflow our capacity to react. Just as all civil airspace was cleared after the 9/11 attacks, the US-Canada border was also frozen, causing economic slowdowns. Border policies are caught between these two panics: security failures and economic crisis. To escape this paradox, American and Canadian authorities have implemented a series of security measures to make the border ‘smarter’, notably the implementation of biometric identity documents and surveillance by UAV Predator drones. Psychoanalytic theory can help us explain why the Canadian and American governments have invested so much money for so little evident or measurable increase in either security or economic flows. The article uses the notion of phantastic objects to explain these (over-)reactions to risk management at the US-Canada border.

Las razones de la inmigración latinoamericana en Bruselas: integración de una migración cualificada en una ciudad global

by Luis Garzon

The road: An ethnography of the Albanian-Greek cross-border motorway. In American Ethnologist vol 37

by Dimitris Dalakoglou

This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and... more This article is an ethnographic study of a 29-kilometer stretch of cross-border highway located in South Albania and linking the city of Gjirokaster with the main checkpoint on the Albanian–Greek border. The road, its politics, and its poetics
constitute an ideal point of entry for an anthropological analysis of contemporary South Albania. The physical and social construction, uses, and perceptions of this road uniquely encapsulate three phenomena that dominate social life in postsocialist South Albania: the transition to a market economy, new nationalisms, and massive emigration (mainly to Greece). Taking this cross-border road section as my main ethnographic
point of reference, I suggest the fruitfulness of further discussion of the relationship between roads, narratives, and anthropology.

[roads, globalization, transnationalism, development, postsocialism, materiality, Albania]

Várfeladók feletti ítélkezés a XVI–XVII. századi Magyarországon (A magyar rendek hadügyi jogkörének kérdéséhez) [Administering Justice on Soldiers who had given up Border Fortresses in the 16th and 17th Century Hungary (Contribution to the debate concerning the importance of the Hungarian estates in military jurisdiction)] In: Levéltári Közlemények, 68. (1997) 1–2. sz. p. 199–221.

by Géza Pálffy

Administering Justice on Soldiers who had given up Border Fortresses in the 16th and 17th Century Hungary... more Administering Justice on Soldiers who had given up Border Fortresses in the 16th and 17th Century Hungary (Contribution to the debate concerning the importance of the Hungarian estates in military jurisdiction): Just as in the other parts of Europe the independent military jurisdiction evolved within the central European Habsburg Monarchy on the Hungarian seat of war against the Ottomans in the 16th century. The dispensation of justice to those soldiers who had given up a border fortress, however, developed in a special way. The German mercenary soldiers just as in other areas of operations in Europe was judged in a court-martial, deputed by the War Council of the Viennense court (Wiener Hofkriegsrat). On the Hungarian soldiers, however, judgement was passed by a special court of the Hungarian Diet (dieta). This special system of jurisdiction consolidated as the result of long ongoing struggle fought in the bipolar state structure between the Hungarian estates and the War Council, the central government office representing the kings in military matters. The goal of the struggle was to maintain, at least partially, the political and military influence the Hungarian estates enjoyed before the Battle of Mohács (1526).

Going Through Border Places: Security Practices and Local Perceptions of Insecurity as Filtration at the Kenya-Uganda Boundary

by William Allen

Peer-reviewed and published with the Centre for International Borders Research Working Paper Series at Queens University Belfast (Number 24).

Security provision figures prominently at international boundaries. Although previous studies in African border... more Security provision figures prominently at international boundaries. Although previous studies in African border contexts demonstrate how such practices are complicated by factors including states’ diminished capacity or willingness to uniformly enforce official policies, they do not fully link these observations to the materiality of border towns or the experiences of border- crossers. Furthermore, there is an imperative within border studies to move beyond descriptive analysis and conceptualise borders as dynamic processes that are contingently expressed through everyday activities. Drawing upon qualitative fieldwork in two border towns at the Kenya-Uganda boundary, and theoretically informed by work in critical geography, this paper makes three arguments: (1) everyday enactment of border security is reshaped by locally held perceptions and expectations of border town life; (2) the security of the physical border is implicated within more general concerns for safety; and (3) the geographic concept of ‘place’ shows how analysis of security ‘filters’ as they actually unfold through contingent ‘moments’ captures the significance of these two spheres for the border region.