2014. vol. 13. No. 4
Topic of the issue: Borders: Merging, Emerging, Emergent
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Editorial
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7–17
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The paper compares opposite approaches to the study of spatial order in contemporary societies. On the one hand, theories of globalization and world society argue that states and their borders are not relevant anymore. Globalization means world without borders, therefore contemporary global cities, being located within state borders, do not belong to their territories. In a global city, there is no room for common solidarity among citizens—those who go beyond state borders cannot become integrated to world society. On the other hand, there is much empirical evidence that states do not disappear. They still play a significant role. The state border deliniates a part of space which people can feel emotional attachment with. The states can use legitimate violence against those who reside within its borders as well as enforce feelings of solidarity with those who live on this territory. This logic brings two notions of nation and nationalism. In a more traditional understanding of these notions based on kinship (“consanguinity”), culture and language, the state is defined as a tool for the constitution of nation, which needs territory with clear borders for survival. In contrast, the civic understanding of nation suggests flexibility of any identities, including the national one. Those who follow the second definition usually do not recognize its implications. On the one hand, a territorially located group can demand statehood to assert and guarantee its identity. On the other hand, a group, which has freely chosen its identity, also can demand spatial borders and, in the same vein, a state. These demands are connected with each other. Spatial definition of any group, which can proclaim itself as a nation and demand a state, contradicts contemporary organization of global cities. In this respect, sociology may be interested in how these two modes of space intersect, i.e. how the world society with its fluids and networks interacts with new states, being constituted within new borders. |
Papers and essays
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18–41
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In his Science of Logic Hegel purports to give an account of a dialectical logic that generates the totality of being’s fundamental structures. This totality does not exhaust the richness of being, but it exhausts the basis of this richness. Any phenomenon, whether cognitive, scientific, social or political, is based upon some or all of those structures. The paper presents and examines the logic of a structure which pervades each and every phenomenon: the border (die Grenze). It is analyzed as an advanced manifestation of “determinateness,” an even more primitive structure of being, which makes explicit its intrinsic connection with not-being. What is distinctive about Hegel’s analysis is that it establishes a logical character concerning the concept of “border” that precedes empirical observation and a connection with space. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct Hegel’s dialectic of the border in such a way as to make this logical character apparent and convincing to contemporary audience, who begin from the assumption that all discourse about border has an empirical basis and presupposes reference to space. It will be argued that, contrary to received opinion, the very phenomenon of “border” has certain universal and necessary features which explain its very possibility, are completely a priori and are established prior to any reference to space. A discussion about “borders” that excludes any a priori investigation into this phenomenon from its domain simply fails to illuminate its most important dimension: its logical core or, if you will, its universal and necessary attributes. |
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42–59
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In this paper, we examine the extent to which the concept of emergence can be applied to questions about the nature and moral justification of territorial borders. Although the term is used with many different senses in philosophy, the concept of “weak emergence”—advocated by, for example, Sawyer (2002, 2005) and Bedau (1997)—is especially applicable, since it forces a distinction between prediction and explanation that connects with several issues in the dis-cussion of territory. In particular, we argue, weak emergentism about borders allows us to distinguish between (a) using a theory of territory to say where a border should be drawn, and (b) looking at an existing border and saying whether or not it is justified (Miller, 2012; Nine, 2012; Stilz, 2011). Many authors conflate these two factors, or identify them by claiming that having one without the other is in some sense incoherent. But on our account—given the concept of emergence—one might unproblematically be able to have (b) without (a); at the very least, the distinction between these two issues is much more significant than has often been recognised, and more importantly gives us some reason to prefer “statist” as opposed to “cultural” theories of territorial borders. We conclude with some further reflections on related matters concerning, firstly, the apparent causal powers of borders, and secondly, the different ways in which borders are physically implemented (e.g., land vs. water). |
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60–79
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Although border issues are a matter of importance for a large number of people, contemporary Border Studies (dominated by the intertwining of post-modernist, constructivist, and critical approaches) is little preoccupied with finding viable practical solutions, focusing instead on conceptualising the essence of borders and border processes. Meanwhile, previous Border Studies was a practically-oriented discipline focused on helping practitioners delimit borders, and to find an optimal balance between protecting borders against unwanted cross-border flows and fostering desirable cross-border interactions. The article examines the widespread theoretical approaches to studying borders in the light of their practical relevance, and discusses what can be done in order to make Border Studies more capable of generating viable practical solutions. Despite the fact that mainstream Border Studies is currently not much preoccupied with bridging theory with practice, I argue that both contemporary and older approaches have significant practical potential which could be especially helpful in solving delimitation problems, increasing efficiency of cross-border cooperation, better balancing the priorities of strengthening border security and fostering cross-border interaction, cross-border region building, managing cross-border conflicts and mitigating alarmist perceptions of the Other, fighting border-related injustices and human rights violations, etc. In addition, I suggest that drawing new ideas from Management Studies and Communication Studies could be promising ways of making Border Studies more practically relevant. |
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80–93
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This article investigates the model of the transnational cosmopolitan moral-legal community of limitless communication. This model, using philosophical means, appears as an attempt to underscore the impossibility of authoritarian monopolies of power which resulted in the dictatorial regimes and national (pro)totalitarian communities of the 20th century. I will reconstruct this model of the supranational community, and analyze the mode of morally-oriented intersubjective interactions within this community. I will show that the differentiation of limits between the “interior” (subjective) and the “exterior” (intersubjective) worlds is an essential communicative and ethical problem in Habermas’ theory. According to this differentiation, subjective “verity” of an individual/local community may be defined and justified by purposes, axiological preferences, and tastes of a particular individual/community; while a claim pretending to be an intersubjective norm should be justified and voluntary accepted by all concerned with this norm. The non-differentiation of limits between what one believes to be “veritable”, and what one claims others should accept as a norm (or imposing on others one’s particular axiological position as a universal norm) underlies most social, (geo)political, ethnical, confessional conflicts, and communicative deformations. Until recently, academic literature did not pay much attention to this key aspect of Habermas’ theory. At the same time, it is this differentiation between the subjectively “veritable” and the intersubjectively valid that makes Habermas’ community anti-totalitarian, and reveals the deep political significance of intersubjective limits. |
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94–104
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It may seem that the concept of marginality has already been thoroughly studied and sometimes even considered as a useless and obsolete theoretical notion. However, in this article I develop the notion in a novel way with regard to recent theoretical debates on the social implications of shifting borderlines in the contemporary world. The notion of “marginal man” introduced by Robert Park is central for my approach since it embodies the “spatial—social” interaction. I construct and use the nexus of space, time and movement to account for the analytical capacities of this concept. The article covers mainly the spatial aspects of marginality and its connotations. I outline two main approaches to the ideal type of the “marginal man” in the paper: 1) the spatial-functional approach (traced back to Simmel’s notion of Stranger), which focuses on the essential functions of Stranger for a group border, and 2) “formal”—making approach to multiple borders (and particularly shifting ones) that shape “marginal’s” identification as placed in-between borders and challenge the orderliness of bordered space. The central task of the marginality research is not to classify different “strangers” and “marginals”, or to describe their conditions, self-identities, and psychological controversies, but to depict social processes responsible for “marginalization”, exclusion, and enabling liminal positions. In this article I argue that the analytical vista of the “marginality” concept can be extended beyond the individual/personal framework and include social institutions (in the example of citizenship). |
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105–115
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This paper examines conceptual change in negotiating borders in the European North. By analyzing the definitions of the status given to Finland in peace treaties between Russia and Sweden, the paper strives to enlighten how through the centuries Russia was involved in negotiating key concepts of European political language, state, territoriality and nationality. With the theoretical discussions in conceptual history as starting point, the paper illustrates how a concept of state, separated from the person of the ruler, emerges in mediaeval and early modern peace treaties, and how the estates of the ruler gradually gain status as political units. With special focus on how notions of a linear state border were attached to the territory of Finland, the paper discusses broader processes of the development of ideas of territorial state and linear state borders. The paper asks how and at which political junctures new understandings of sovereignty appear in the treaties between Russia and Sweden and how international recognition of territorial integrity and the rights of citizens were introduced as part of the relations between the two countries. The broader aim of the paper is to contribute to a comparative discussion on how state-making and bordering processes in the European North were linked to political modernization, and how and to what degree the redefinition of borders and territories were connected to new kinds of conceptualizations of state, sovereignty and nationality characteristic to modern politics. |
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116–136
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In this anthropological study, I examine how a particular state and regional border is crossed in the context of a joint socio-ecological project concerning recycling waste in Karelia. During a two-year, multilevel project, cooperation developed between the Petrozavodsk municipality and its northern partners under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers. This cooperation was advanced particularly through the eastward translation of values, including early education and sustainable behavior, which were consistent within broader international border relations across the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. The process of the taking over of these imported Nordic values and knowledge, and adapting them to the everyday and professional life of the local participants of the project went hand in hand with the perpetuation of cultural cross-border stereotypes. The idea of marking home from foreign became equally applicable to the space within a much smaller entity, such as a condominium, a round-table in a discussion room, or a city flowerbed, particularly when the construction of the border intersected with the construction of the other. Invisible barriers, as well as physical objects, can demarcate the divide between individuals of the same nationality and cultural background who need to claim, protect, and reconstruct a personal connection to a piece of land. |
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137–157
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This article outlines the possibilities of autobiographical stories to criticize status quo iterations of International Relations (IR). The article draws on the personal experiences of the author’s deportation order issued by the United Kingdom’s Home Office and its associated Border Agency (UKBA) to challenge the accepted assumptions of a cosmopolitan worldview as it relates to orderly international institutional design. It highlights the possibilities of trauma when border management and personal mobility collide. It suggests that mobility trauma ensues when the expectations of human mobility, outlined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, infringe the state’s role as security provider. It begins in part one with a challenge to the traditional role and understanding of international borders that sustain order within the international. It examines the unacknowledged role that human vulnerability plays within IR and institutional design while frankly engaging with human vulnerability and trauma in the second section. This section details the experiences of the author when her mobility rights were curtailed and the ensuing identity crisis prompted by such events. The final section investigates the ideas of critical cosmopolitan scholarship demanding that such discourses acknowledge and work through the possibility of failed agency when the demands of state security supersede individual mobility rights. It turns to the possibility of traumatic iterations of IR in order to probe such possibilities. The article suggests, in its conclusion, the possibility of storytelling and psychoanalysis to endorse unorthodox agency, and the possibility of a dynamic international institutional design, that challenges the status quo iterations of IR. |
Book reviews
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158–169
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Taylor p. (2014) The Next America: Boomers, Millennials and the Looming Generational Showdown, New York: Public Affairs, 288 p. ISBN 9781610393508 |
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