Categories, borders and boundaries

Abstract

In recent years, categories have been a topic of substantial research in the social sciences and humanities. Although many problematic categories such as culture, gender and scale have been criticized, moving beyond them has proved to be surprisingly difficult. This paper attributes this difficulty to what is termed the paradox of categories and argues that the key problems with categories emerge from the contradictory ways their boundaries are intellectually and cognitively understood. By integrating poststructural insights into the role categories play in ordering modern society with research from cognitive science on the role categories play as containers in cognitive processes, this paper argues that the boundaries of categories should be understood as always inchoate — only partially formed and incomplete. The paper concludes that research into categories and boundaries is unnecessarily fragmented across a wide range of disciplines and proposes expanding boundary studies in geography to be the field that investigates the bounding processes that result in all types of categories.

Making a difference : boundary management in spatial governance

“…Within the social sciences, there is general agreement on what boundaries are and on their formation being a social process. Boundaries can be understood as demarcations around categories (Jones, 2009;Yanow, 2000). Categorisations are necessary in order to understand the world around us and to find words for what we perceive.…”

“…Categorisations are necessary in order to understand the world around us and to find words for what we perceive. While meant to represent reality, as simplifications they simultaneously create and limit our perception of reality (Jones, 2009). As such, both categories and boundaries are social constructs (Foucault, 1972;Jones, 2009).…”

“…While meant to represent reality, as simplifications they simultaneously create and limit our perception of reality (Jones, 2009). As such, both categories and boundaries are social constructs (Foucault, 1972;Jones, 2009). Alternative terms for boundary include interface, demarcation, delineation and divide (Ostrom, 1996;Schut et al, 2013;Westerink et al, 2015a).…”

“…As with all categorisations, this distinction can be disputed. Other authors have used other categorisations of boundaries and even defined those categorisations differently (see Abraham and Maney, 2012;Hernes, 2004;Jones, 2009;Van Broekhoven et al, 2014). My own interpretation of physical boundaries, for instance, differs from those of Hernes (2004), Abraham and Maney (2012), Sternlieb et al (2013) and Van Broekhoven et al (2014).…”

“…Rather than boundaries themselves, the 'inchoate process of bounding' is more interesting to study (Jones, 2009). Due to social and cognitive processes, boundaries are never finished or fixed (ibid).…”