Borderscapes in landscape: Identity meets ideology

Abstract

This article explores the interrelatedness of ideology and everyday practices, which initiate and shape bordering practices in landscape. By analysing a case study of (re)arranging Estonian land usage borders after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it gives a glance at how the conflicts that arise from bordering practices are reconciled on the individual and collective level. The empirical material of the study is based on the minutes of the Estonian Parliament (1990–1995), semistructured interviews, and land maps. The article maps the intermingling of (a) ideology, (b) everyday practices, and (c) bordering practices on changes in the landscape during the period of legislative turbulence in the 1990s. The article suggests that the processes of shaping borders in landscape are dynamic, depending on complex interrelations of identity and ideology. Additionally, past layers become important both in negotiating everyday lives and in negotiating legal issues.

Intricacies of Moral Geographies of Land Restitution in Estonia

“…Moral geography is not precisely a field of study within geography, it is rather a mindset for analysing relationships between societies or their (vulnerable) subgroups and their operations in the spatial realm [35] (see also [9] (pp. [47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64]). It has never been a mainstream topic in geography, but quietly emerging, here and there, across decades [36][37][38][39], finding a way even to the title of an Association of American Geographers presidential address [40].…”

“…In this article, we rely on the postulate that landscapes are produced not only by the people who live in their surroundings, but also socially via moral and ideological guidelines and hegemonic discourses [54]. Landscape is as much a source of social negotiations as legislative practices.…”

“…Landscape is as much a source of social negotiations as legislative practices. Land and its meaning are deeply rooted in questions of (national) identity, feelings of belonging and place attachment but, at the same time, become mingled with legal practicalities [54]. We believe that studying the interactions of moral aspects within certain geographical phenomena (such as land property and use, landscapes, and bordering processes in landscape) is a fruitful way to understand the dynamics of identities and ideologies and their intertwinement.…”

Psychology of borders: An integral proposal to understand border phenomena in human life

“…The last theoretical challenge is to understand how border practices affect the construction of meanings that people develop about the world around them and that will become, then, part of the intra-psychological world. The works of Nugin and Palang (2021), Parellada et al (2021), and Scott (2021) focus on some everyday practices such as formal history education, urban narratives, and land distribution as arenas of border-creation in the everyday social sphere. Parellada et al (2021) focus on formal education as a means for the transmission of official discourses on the construction of national borders.…”

“…In the same vein, Nugin and Palang (2021) emphasize the ideological aspect of everyday practices in constructing borders. Based on the case of land redistribution in Estonia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the authors outline a theoretical proposal where ideology, identity, daily actions, and legal procedures contribute to shaping borders during territory distribution.…”