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International boundaries have been mainly considered as barriers in literature on the 'cross-border regional innovation system' (CBRIS), in line with their traditional understanding. In this paper, we underline that such a perspective presents limits, and argue in favour of an understanding of multidimensional borders that are subject to dynamic change over time. By mobilizing conceptualizations from the field of border studies, we examine the various functions of borders to explain the innovation-led development potential in cross-border regions. In this view, international borders can function as an interface, a marker of difference or a symbol, rather than a mere barrier that separates regions. Further, we suggest that these border functions are key factors in explaining the 'fluctuating' integration dynamics of regional innovation systems across the border. Mobilizing evidence from two case studies in European and North American contexts, the paper sheds light on the border as a potential resource for innovation and discusses implications for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that four paradigm shifts have unfolded in boundary and border studies from the delimitation of the Durand line as the Indo-Afghan frontier. Three subsequent paradigm shifts relate to cooperative management of the Canada–US border after WW1, cultural hybridization across the Mexico-US border since the 1980s, and current networked assemblage of EU's external border. The paradigm-shift framework connects conceptual advancements in boundary making and border studies with the geopolitical prominence of given borders. The article claims that scholars draw ideal types from the paradigmatic borders of their times, either by accepting or contesting the values anchored in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the role of border in theories and policies of Latin American regionalism. It shows that neither the explanatory 'waves' of regionalism in studies of International Relations nor Latin American regional integration policies have addressed borders seriously. Accordingly, it argues for a view of border regions as key political and epistemological places for understanding spatial relations between state, region, and globalization. Though some academic and political initiatives have started to unpack the Cartesian reading of border in Latin American regionalism, the article argues that further steps can be taken by treating borders (peripheries) as epistemological centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainly concerned with its own status as a European border, Romania neglected its own frontiers. If during the communist years it was impossible to focus on borders as an object of historical, sociological or ethnographic research, nowadays, almost 30 years after the fall of communism, border studies appear as an inconsistently defined field. The present research looks to outline a theoretical framework, an introduction to a field that has produced a sizable body of literature regarding other historiographical spaces, and to bring arguments for further research in the area of oral history in the case of these particular areas. Our project retraces the development and conclusions of an experimental project conducted on the border between Romania and the Republic of Moldova. This border can be regarded as a special case, as it separates Romania from a territory that was carved out of its national body and to which it has strong ethno-cultural ties. The present day territory of the Republic of Moldova was subjected to important identity change programs and the border reacted more acutely to this phenomenon. Our study resorts to the instruments of oral history in order to identify the mechanism through which people on the border created their own identity, the means that allowed them to cultivate and preserve older identities, their reaction to the propaganda of the communist regimes and, eventually, their position regarding the relation between alterity and solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy & Peace is the property of Ihsan Dogramaci Peace Foundation, Center for Foreign Policy & Peace Research 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 focuses on soils as more-than-human subjects who are both living entities and 'lenses' through which we may begin to rethink some of the conventional parameters of ecology, communication and even the grounding of some western philosophical traditions on which these boundaries have stood. Just as the very term 'more-than-human' potentially exceeds the relegation of both soilogic agents and animalities to subservient status, likewise this discussion embarks from a more-than-humanist ('posthumanist') position. As we attempt to interact with living systems and ways of being in broader, more expansive terms, it becomes possible to catch conceptual glimpses of less hierarchical ontologies as they are understood by some more-than-western cultures. I have also drawn inspiration from artistic, theoretical and political movements in the west that have sought to interrupt the primacy of Eurocentric humanism in institutions and philosophical arenas. This presages dirty thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that transnationalism and border studies offer complementary perspectives where each can inspire the other. Based on two case studies, the notions of border dispositifs and border effects are developed as analytical lenses for researching and conceptualising the nexus between transnational migration and border regimes. While the border dispositifs facilitates a de-reification of borders and shifts the focus on how inequalities are produced by specific border locations and situations, the border effects perspectives reifies the notion of border in order to capture structural effects which border regimes have on transnational migrants’ lives. Finally, the article introduces the notion of border capital to theorise effects that borders have on resources of persons who are mobile across borders. It aims at capturing the impact of borders on inequalities between mobile and sedentary persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at visual configurations of border landscapes and Central American migrant trajectories in three recent documentaries: Which Way Home (Cammisa, 2009), De Nadie/No One (Dirdamal, 2005) and Who is Dayani Cristal? (Silver and García Bernal, 2013). It examines elements pertaining to the representations of borders, space and identity to expand Shaw's classification of the new sub-genre of migration films within the documentary. It also highlights the social configuration of space because of its relational construction and its production through practices of material engagement: 'if time unfolds as change then space unfolds as interaction'. To this end, the spatial metaphor of the paratopia designates a negotiation of material and human relationality away from essentialist place/non-place thinking. This additionally leads to an examination of the migrant body as a depoliticized subject of which the visualization counters the stereotypical discourse of the migrant as a delinquent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been an increasing interest in borders from a variety of disciplines. This paper scrutinizes an extensive range of literature in the border studies. Initially, it draws a conceptual framework that clarifies how to approach and study borders. Later, it identifies constantly evolving concerns in the border studies from a historical perspective. It provides valuable insights into how to understand this continually progressing research area. It argues that borders are not just about producing a bounded space but also producing a social collectiveness. Bordering is an on-going process through which socio-spatial homogenisations and differentiations occur. Borders inform individual and collective identities; they shape and are shaped by collective and individual consciousness. Borders, by definition, are about creating and taking sides, which construct many more associated dichotomies: inside-outside; we-they; inclusion-exclusion; and us-the other. The process of imagining the existence of 'other' is crucial in creating borders. The paper also argues that there is a need to move beyond many dichotomies in border studies: symbolic or material; real or imaginary; barriers or zones of cultural encounters; top-down or bottom-up; and frontiers or multiple sites. This paper provides an important insight into this constantly evolving research area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a synthesis of the major historical works on nineteenth-century European borders. Founded on an original methodological approach, the article advances a rethinking of the concept of 'territoriality' traditionally attributed to the rise of modern nation-states. The innovative method adopted is based on combining the focus on spatiality in recent historiography - especially in global history - with the categories and the ethnographic method developed within the border-studies field. The analysis is conducted in two directions. The first focuses on 'borders', specifically on some bordercreation processes developing throughout the European continent. The second is more centred on European 'borderlands', conceived as trans-state and trans-national regions, mainly linked to the space's well-established social practices, familial and economic networks and religious experience. On the one hand, the article highlights how nineteenth-century borders were not simply the product of an institutional decision performed by emerging nation-states, but also the result of an interactive dialectic between state institutions and social actors inhabiting the borderlands. On the other, it shows how the borderlands as cross-border territorial entities continued to exist alongside the new territorial state limits, helping shape a more complex European spatiality than traditionally stated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a globalized urban world, cross-border metropolises represent a spatial configuration emblematic of the interplay between the space of flows and the space of places. The multiplicity of contexts and processes at work can complicate the identification of what constitutes the singularity of the concept. In order to contribute to these reflections the present article hypothesizes that the specificity of cross-border metropolises does not fundamentally stem from the form they take or the nature of the cross-border integration at work, but rather from the particular role played by national borders in their formation. Opening up borders offers new opportunities for border cities and urban border regions to reinforce their positions at the heart of global economic networks, and to affirm their autonomy as cross-border regional entities. Without minimizing the possible obstructive effects of borders, it is helpful to recognize that they might also represent a resource in the composition of cross-border metropolitan regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to investigate the dynamics of border changes in Central Europe after the collapse of communism. It analyzes the interactions of border twin towns. This micro-perspective is applied to three borders in Central Europe (German - Polish, Slovak - Hungarian and Romanian - Bulgarian), and five town pairs. The main observation is that post-war boundarization was followed by re-frontierization attempts after 1989, initiated in both top-down and bottom-up processes, due to the central and local impulses. As many of the desired cross-border goats have already been achieved, the re-frontierization tendency slowed down or even stopped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the early modern era, there were hundreds of political borders in Europe between states with different official religions. People of different faiths encountered one another across these borders, practicing a form of coexistence which histories of religious toleration have largely ignored. The case of Vaals, a village in Dutch Limburg, reveals much about the tenor of religious life in border communities. Located where the borders of the Dutch Republic, the Habsburg Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire (the Imperial City of Aachen) intersected, Vaals was a site of encounter and intensive engagement between Protestants and Catholics. An examination of relations between Protestants and Catholics in Vaals and its surrounding region highlights the practical limits of the famous principle, cuius regio eius religio. Religious groups of all stripes made creative use of the political borders between states to pursue their religious aims, and dissenting groups in particular found that the proximity of such borders facilitated their survival and worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mana (01049313) is the property of Contra Capa Livraria 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 presents opportunities of the phenomenological approach towards the Belarusian-Polish-Lithuanian borderlands. Such approach is based upon the principles of understanding of social reality elaborated in phenomenology (E. Husserl, M. Heidegger) and phenomenological sociology (A. Schutz) and presents a different view of the borderlands as compared with the traditional (classical) sociology. The social and cultural space of the borderlands is reflected in the modes of distance (close - distant), temporality (now - then) and the "presence of the Other" (local - stranger), as well as their interrelated modifications. It helps to understand the degree of the acquisition/alienation of various cultural and political phenomena of the historical past and the present-day life. The historical events and personalities, as well as existing monuments of culture in the borderlands are reflected in "our/alien" dichotomy. This results in the representation of the identities of the borderlands as liquid and plural constructs and the matters of interpretation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 21 December 2007, the German–Polish border became a "Schengen" border. Passport controls and other limitations to the movement of people and goods were abolished, removing one more obstacle to European and, perhaps, German–Polish integration. Several years earlier, Poland introduced territorial and administrative changes that moved it closer institutionally to western European states. Forty-nine subnational administrative units were replaced by sixteen self-governing voivodships. This article explores the implications of this new institutional context for German–Polish border relations. It finds that, despite the expansion of the opportunity structure for greater German–Polish cross-border cooperation, interaction still tends to be among elites. The development of linkages at the societal level lags behind for several reasons, including lingering institutional impediments and cultural differences, but also the failings of political leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Analisis Politico is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia 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 examines the transnational living strategies utilized by women on the US/Mexico border while critically exploring the contradictory coexistence of successful transnational corridors, such as the NAFTA highway, and the poor residents who live alongside them. The article focuses on the transnational living strategies they use in order to improve their living conditions in Starr County, Texas. The author argues that transmigrant women and their families use migration and settlement in the Lower Rio Grande Valley as a way of improving their standard of living. However, the contradiction is that they end up living in an area known for its poor living conditions and high unemployment rates. This article is an ethnographic study of the ways in which women and their families negotiate poverty in a poor, rural border community while also showing how a poor and rural border area can both exacerbate and alleviate woman's poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]