Borderlands 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.

Contingent borders, ambiguous ethics: Migrants in (international) political theory

by james brassett

The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative... more The article engages a critical analysis of liberal theory in the context of transnational migration. Normative arguments provided by liberal-cosmopolitan and liberal-communitarian authors are contrasted. While sympathetic to such approaches, we argue that traditional liberal theory has attempted to downplay the contingency and resultant ambiguity of many of its moral precepts. Historically contingent borders underpin neat universal categories like ‘‘citizen’’ and ‘‘refugee,’’ which fail to reflect the diverse and contested experiences of migration. But such ambiguities need not undermine liberal approaches. Indeed, a proper engagement with the problematic and uncertain realities of migration can provide a spur to a more thoroughgoing ethical praxis. We draw on the philosophical pragmatism of Richard Rorty to outline an approach to migration that remains open to the contingent construction of terms like ‘‘migrant,’’ ‘‘refugee,’’ and ‘‘asylum-seeker.’’ By extending Rorty’s concept of sentimental education, we provide an imaginative and politically
challenging set of agendas for the ethics of migration.

Paradoxical outcomes of national schooling in the borderland of West Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Michael Eilenberg

Borneo Research Bulletin, 2005, Vol. 36: 163-184.

This paper brings together facets of national belonging and national schooling within a Indonesian borderland context... more This paper brings together facets of national belonging and national schooling within a Indonesian borderland context with the aim of understanding the often shifting and ambiguous relationship between border populations and their nation-state. Mass-education in Indonesia is of fairly recent origin and has been an important instrument in the nation-building process. In this paper, I will argue that processes of national schooling are often more complex and seldom turn out as intended by national policy-makers. In the area studied national schooling has been only partially successful in creating identification with Indonesia due to certain socio-economic constraints and the local border peoples’ long history of cross-border relations.

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.

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]

Jesuit Missionaries, Environmental Transformation, and Indian Ethnogenesis in the Lagoon March of Northeastern New Spain

by J. Gabriel Martinez-Serna

To be presented at the 2012 Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies Conference on Park City, Utah, March 28-April1, 2012

In the northeast corner of New Spain, the frontier province of Nueva Vizcaya included the region between the present... more In the northeast corner of New Spain, the frontier province of Nueva Vizcaya included the region between the present day city of Torreon and the old provincial capital of Saltillo. It is a region of sandy soil with little precipitation, covered mostly by desert scrub dotted with occasional watering holes and surrounded in three sides by the Sierra Madre and Sierra de Coahuila. Two rivers, the Nazas and the Aguanaval, reach their end in the area, and their flow helps sustain livestock and intensive agriculture, even though their affluent is not yearlong. The area is commonly referred to, rather incongruously, as the Comarca Lagunera (Lagoon March), though the aridity of the surrounding area makes for a jarring comparison between the name and physical reality.
The origins of the term come from colonial times: it was the nucleus of the immense Marquisate of San Miguel de Aguayo, the largest entailed estate in the borderlands (hence the term Comarca, the landed property of a Marquis); secondly, at the time of contact between Spaniards and Indians of the region in the second half of the sixteenth century, the area was a lush lacustrine environment sustaining the largest population of Indians in Mexico’s colonial north, the Lagunero Indians.
This unique lacustrine environment teeming with heathen Indians seemed like a promising area for establishing a mission, but its economic potential also attracted secular Spanish settlement. Within a couple of generations it would be transformed by European agriculture accompanied by an even more dramatic change in the demographic profile of the region. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Parras mission had been secularized into a frontier parish, the Jesuits had changed their mission into a colegio, and the local economy was providing wine to a frontier market that stretched for hundreds of square kilometers. The Jesuits were not the only actors who brought about these changes, but they were the most consequential.
The introduction of European agriculture and livestock transformed the natural and human landscape of the Americas profoundly. In the borderlands of the continent, it was often missionaries who introduced these practices to areas where mobile Indians groups had adapted their cultures to an environment that was irrevocably changed. Transforming a landscape usually doomed a mobile ethnic group to forced adaptation, migration or extinction, but could also prove a catalyst to an ethnogenesis that could not have occurred without the effects the Columbian exchange brought about by the missionaries. The so-called Lagoon March (Comarca Lagunera) of the northeastern borderlands of New Spain experienced perhaps the most dramatic of these episodes in the story of Colonial North America. This region was home to the Lagunero Indians, the most populous pre-contact group in the borderlands, and as late as the last decade of the sixteenth century it was a lush lagoon environment surrounded by wooded mountains. The Jesuits founded the Parras mission there in 1598, and within two generations, the Laguneros had largely disappeared, and the area was transformed into a highly productive oasis surrounded by scrub barely suitable for livestock. Viticulture made the area the richest non-mining region of the entire frontier, and a magnet for population. Tlaxcalan (Nahua) colonist that had lived in the mission and survived the Lagunero extinction became a borderlands community intrinsically attached to viticulture and communal rights to water from the region’s only major spring, giving them a legal status that distinguished them from other Indian groups (including other Tlaxcalans) and underlined a social cohesion that lasted until the Independence period. Thus, the unintended effects of the Jesuit presence transformed the Parras environment and the way Indian identity related to it.

Il suburbio

by Rita Volpe

R. Volpe, "Il Suburbio", in A. Giardina (a cura di), Roma antica, Bari-Roma 2000, pp. 183-210

Si cerca di dare una definizione del suburbio di Roma nel tempo e nello spazio, ricostruendo le principali fasi di... more Si cerca di dare una definizione del suburbio di Roma nel tempo e nello spazio, ricostruendo le principali fasi di sfruttamento del territorio suburbano.

Santo Toribio: The Rise of a Saint

by Tom Evans

MA Thesis - University of Denver, Religious Studies

Santo Toribio (1900-28) was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2000 as a martyr of Mexico’s bloody Cristero... more Santo Toribio (1900-28) was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 2000 as a martyr of Mexico’s bloody Cristero Rebellion. He enjoyed a modest local following for decades after the Rebellion as many of the other Cristero martyr-saints did. However around the time of his canonization, a new identity began to emerge different from that of martyr; he became the patron saint of immigration. For believers, Santo Toribio helps mitigate the criminal nature of this act by showing God’s approval and blessing. He places the pain and social distortion of Border crossing in Roman Catholic contexts of holiness and divine intervention. This thesis begins to catalog and analyze the nature of Santo Toribio’s unofficial patronage.

Nomen (atque) omen? O wartościowaniu znaków granicznych w średniowiecznej i nowożytnej przestrzeni osadniczej Pomezanii

by Seweryn Szczepanski

Artykuł został przygotowany na podstawie wystąpienia w ramach konferencji „Zjawiska magiczno-demoniczne na Warmii i... more Artykuł został przygotowany na podstawie wystąpienia w ramach konferencji „Zjawiska magiczno-demoniczne na Warmii i Mazurach na przestrzeni wieków na tle porównawczym”. W niniejszym tekście skupiłem się głównie na symbolice znaków granicznych oraz elementów krajobrazu wpisanych w obszary przygraniczne miast i wsi średniowiecznej i nowożytnej Pomezanii. Niebagatelną rolę w organizacji przestrzeni osadniczej pełniły sanktuaria w postaci świętych gajów i jezior, których obecność na pograniczach osadniczych łączyć się mogła z chęcią manifestacji prawa do zajmowanego terytorium i poświęcania go opiece lokalnych bóstw lub patronów. W ich pobliżu często napotykamy na grody pruskie, których pozostałości również stanowiły elementy orientacyjne przy wyznaczaniu granic wsi lub miast. Z granicami wiązały się różnego rodzaju miejsca naznaczone negatywną aurą, związane ze sferą potępienia jak na przykład miejsca kaźni. Analiza źródeł dokumentowych oraz źródeł kartograficznych wykazała, że na objętym badaniami obszarze lokowano je zawsze na granicach. Ważna rolę pełniły też dawne obiekty kultu w postaci pogańskich rzeźb kultowych tzw. „bab pruskich” – dawnych wyobrażeń bóstw pruskich, które w okresie kolonizacji krzyżackiej wykorzystywane były jako znaki graniczne. W niniejszym artykule skupiam się na wykazaniu jaką wartość posiadały znaki graniczne i elementy pogranicza, omawiam podania i wierzenia jakie im towarzyszyły. Nie można było pominąć także rytuałów związanych z wyznaczaniem i ochroną granic zanotowanych w źródłach z XIV i XVIII wieku.

AN OPEN LETTER TO CAMERON COUNTY COMMISSION

by MARGO TAMEZ

Published in The Crit Legal Studies Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Winter 2009

Defending and administering the frontier: The case of Ottoman Hungary

by Gabor Agoston

Published in Woodhead, Christine. The Ottoman World. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012, pp. 220-236.
The chapter examines geopolitics and the creation of the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier in Hungary, Ottoman provincial administration and administrative strategies, Ottoman forts and garrisons, the limits to sultanic authority and the Hungaro-Ottoman condominium, as well as regional-social networks and economic opportunities along the frontier.

"Tatuajes y (geo)políticas corporales de la memoria en un contexto migratorio" En: Francisco de la Peña M. (coord.), Cuerpo, enfermedad mental y cultura, México, ENAH-INAH-Conaculta, 2009.

by Abeyamí Ortega

El presente volumen, compuesto por trabajos con una común vocación interdisciplinaria que conjuga la mirada... more El presente volumen, compuesto por trabajos con una común vocación interdisciplinaria que conjuga la mirada antropológica con aquella derivada de la clínica psiquiátrica, psicológica y psicoanalítica, surge de una inquietud: abordar los nexos entre cuerpo, desorden mental y cultura.
Producto de un esfuerzo colectivo, los trabajos aquí reunidos abarcan tópicos variados: las concepciones del cuerpo, la persona y la enfermedad mental; la eficacia simbólica y los poderes de la cura; la alteridad, la sexualidad y el cuerpo en el mundo prehispánico; los términos referidos a la locura entre los mayas de la época colonial; el cuerpo y los desordenes mentales en contextos migratorios; el tatuaje y su relación con las identidades culturales transfronterizas; el cuerpo y diferentes tipos de violencia; el cuerpo y los trastornos afectivos en el marco de las instituciones psiquiátricas.
Se pretende con esta antología hacer accesibles investigaciones de un terreno poco explorado en nuestro país, el de la etnopsiquiatría, que puedan ser atractivas tanto para especialistas como para un público más amplio interesado en comprender las imbricaciones existentes entre cultura, psiquismo y cuerpo, que constituyen por doquier el nudo en el que se tejen múltiples configuraciones sociales, históricas y simbólicas.

Retos culturales de México frente a la globalización

by Abeyamí Ortega

Coord: Arizpe, Lourdes
Colección: Las Ciencias Sociales. Segunda Década
Series: Conocer para Decidir
Área: Globalización
Materia: Globalización cultural Mexicanos en los Estados Unidos Mujeres-Empleo Indígenas – cultura Cultura popular – México Política cultural – México
Coeditor(es): H. Cámara de Diputados, LIX Legislatura.
ISBN: 970-701-879-8
NO. de catálogo: 042615-01
Edición: octubre de 2006

Autores: Néstor García Canclini, Florence Toussaint, Abeyami Ortega Domínguez, Edith Pérez Flores, Cristina Amescua,  Ma. Eugenia Ramírez Parra, Héctor Tejera Gaona, Astrid Juárez Tapia, María Ana Portal, Raúl Béjar, Héctor Rosales, Mercedes Pedrero Nieto, Iris Meza Bernal, Cristina Oehmichen, Adriana González Mateos, Maya Lorena Pérez ruiz, Luis Manuel Arias Reyes, Marcos Sandoval Cruz, Blanca González Rosas, Esther Hernández Palacios, Gilberto Gutiérrez, Ishtar Cardona, Josefa Guzmán Bulnes, Tiosha Bojórquez Chapela, Cristina Amescua, Enrique Nalda, Ana Rosas Mantecón, Rafael Segovia, Eduardo Nivón Bolán, Hiram Villalobos Audifred, Arturo I. Saucedo González, Carlos J. Villaseñor Anaya.

Frente a la globalización levantamos la mirada hacia fuera de las fronteras de México para captar y analizar los... more Frente a la globalización levantamos la mirada hacia fuera de las fronteras de México para captar y analizar los nuevos desafíos que enfrentamos en esta era global. Lo que vemos, a través de los estudios incluidos en este libro, es que hay que cambiar la percepción común sobre lo que pasa en México con la globalización cultural. Ni las relaciones culturales de los mexicanos con procesos globales son nuevas, ni su impacto es siempre negativo. Al contrario, dinamiza porque presenta nuevos retos.

Antropología de las fronteras. Alteridad, historia e identidad más allá de la línea.

by Abeyamí Ortega

Materia: Frontera – México – Estados Unidos - México Etnicidad Globalización cultural Migración
Coeditor(es): El Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
ISBN: 978-970-701-939-3
NO. de catálogo: 133055-01
Edición: junio de 2007
Encuadernación: rústica
Páginas: 384 pp.
Medidas: 17 X 23 cm
Peso: 500 g.
Textos: Introducción por Miguel Olmos Aguilera. Textos por Francisco de la Peña Martínez, Abeyami Ortega Domínguez, Eugeni Porras Carrillo, Rafael Pérez-Taylor, María Eugenia Jurado Barranco, Miguel Olmos Aguilera, Adriana Cruz Manjares, Ana Bella Pérez Castro, Tiosha Borjórquez Chapela, Guillermo Alonso Meneses, Jesús Aguilar Nery, Guillermina Yankelevich, Lawrence Douglas Taylor Hansen, Lucila del Carmen León Velazco, Mario Alberto Magaña Mancillas, Alejandro Aguilar Zéleny, Leticia Bibiana Santiago Guerrero, Everardo Garduño y Neyra Patricia Alvarado Solís.

El propósito de esta obra es presentar trabajos que interpretan la realidad cultural e histórica de la relación entre... more El propósito de esta obra es presentar trabajos que interpretan la realidad cultural e histórica de la relación entre México y Estados Unidos. Las sociedades que se encuentran en la frontera son analizadas para obtener información sobre la percepción de sus individuos, descubriendo así el papel de la antropología en la frontera. El libro presenta los resultados de las nuevas investigaciones teóricas y empíricas desde el punto de vista antropológico, etiológico e histórico, las cuales arrojan información suficiente para medir algunos de los fenómenos culturales así como aspectos de unidad y diversidad cultural.

La complexité frontalière comme lieu du contrôle, liberté, négociation: construction des discours sur la migration

by Eckehard Pistrick

avec Laurence Pillant et Despina Syrri

Il est question ici de réfléchir sur ces discours et contres discours autorisés et de tenter de sortir de ceux-ci,... more Il est question ici de réfléchir sur ces discours et contres discours autorisés et de tenter de sortir de ceux-ci, afin d’avoir une vision plus complexe et plus complète de la frontière dans son rapport à la migration. Comment peut-on approcher la frontière autrement, proposer une réflexion et une remise en question d’une vision qui parait trop unidimensionnelle ? Il parait ainsi indispensable de faire un rapide cadrage de la vision de la migration dans les Balkans, images et discours hérités qui doivent être pris en compte. Dans un deuxième temps, nous envisageons l’objet frontalier dans les limites de son étude en lien avec la migration, et comment ces limites peuvent être le fruit d’une vision unidimensionnelle du rapport migration/frontière avec une domination de la frontière sur la migration. Un troisième point permettra de comprendre pourquoi cette vision est si fortement ancrée dans les discours et les perceptions. Il n’est pas question ici de faire fi des réalités du franchissement frontalier, de la difficulté et des souffrances qu’il engendre, mais de questionner notre vision sur lui. Pour finir, il s’agira de mener une réflexion sur les outils méthodologiques disponibles afin d’envisager le rapport migration/frontière sous un angle nouveau.

Парадигма прикордоння і центро-периферійні підходи

by Tomasz Zarycki

Україна модерна, 18 (2011), pp. 79-99

The article contrasts two approaches to analysis and imagining regions and states in Central and Eastern Europe – the... more The article contrasts two approaches to analysis and imagining regions and states in Central and Eastern Europe – the borderland paradigm and the center-periphery models. In particular, Tomasz Zarycki contrasts the so-called “new” borderland paradigm in its modern and liberal form with the “old” expansionistic versions of borderlands discourse (for instance, Frederick Turner’s frontier thesis and the idea of Polish Kresy). The author explains borderland discourse produces idealistic images of multicultural communities devoid of any power relations which often ignore the wider geopolitical context of external dependencies. Zarycki criticizesthis “new” borderlands discourse and explains instead the advantages of a more recent approach to borderland studies – theories proposed by Immanuel in popularity in recent years. Zarycki proposes that the “new” borderland discourse may be seen as a form of cultural compensatory offer for marginalized peripheral communities which gain a superficial recognition as core regions. Besides, the author notes that the borderlands discourse is now most popular among provincial intellectuals who use it as a legitimization tool for sustaining their special status and social distance between them and “others”, including mostly inhabitants of their regions who are not yet open to the idea of multicultural borderlands.

Peryferie czy pogranicza? Krytyczne spojrzenie na współczesne sposoby posługiwania się pojęciem "pogranicza"

by Tomasz Zarycki

(Published in:) B. Jałowiecki, & S. Kapralski (eds.) Peryferie i pogranicza: O potrzebie różnorodności, Warszawa:... more (Published in:) B. Jałowiecki, & S. Kapralski (eds.) Peryferie i pogranicza: O potrzebie różnorodności, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, pp. 33-54. [Peripheries or borderlands? A critical view on the uses of the term “borderlands”].

Theorizing (im) mobilities: Rethinking border-crossing tourism and migration

by Noel B. Salazar

Salazar, Noel B. 2011. Theorizing (im)mobilities: Rethinking border-crossing tourism and migration. In E. Judd & J. Zhang (Eds.), Mobility and Migration in China and the Asia Pacific Region (pp. 8-25). Beijing: Intellectual Property Publishing House.

Granice pruskich ziem Prezla i Rudencz

by Seweryn Szczepanski

Printed in: "Komunikaty Mazursko-Warmińskie" 2009, nr 1

Pruskie ziemie Prezla i Rudencz znajdowały się w południowej części Pomezanii, jako pierwszy wspomina o nich dokument... more Pruskie ziemie Prezla i Rudencz znajdowały się w południowej części Pomezanii, jako pierwszy wspomina o nich dokument z 1249 r. Jak dotąd nie określono jednak ich obszaru, bardzo pomocne w tym okazują się dokumenty wyznaczające obszar Biskupstwa Pomezańskiego z lat 1250, 1254, 1294 i 1324, szczególnie z uwagi na fakt wymienionej w nich granicy pomiędzy tymi dwoma ziemiami. Dokumenty te także pozwalają nam zidentyfikować wspomniane w nich miejscowości Protest – jako okolice Kamionki (Kl. Steinersdorf) oraz pole Schinevite – obecnie zaginione, znajdujące się najpewniej po wschodniej części jeziora Stęgwica (Stengwitz-See). Pomocnym w ustaleniu dawnej granicy ziem Prezla i Rudencz, okazuje się także zlokalizowany wiosną 2008 r. wał podłużny biegnący pomiędzy jeziorem Silm (Silm-See) a jeziorem Jeziorak (Geserich-See).