Maintaining borders: From border guards to diplomats

Abstract

The article aims at integrating the cultural psychology perspective of into the multidisciplinary field of border studies. It analyses the border phenomenon as a co-genetic system. The authors investigate the psychological side of people who relate to the border out of different motives. Then, it expands some of the theoretical concepts current in border studies by introducing psychological dimensions such as intentionality and directionality. Finally, the framework is applied to two case-studies representing the northern and southern European Union frontiers: the case of Estonian officer Eston Kohver in the Setumaa region on the Estonian–Russian border; and the experiences of border guards in the re-bordering process on the Spanish– Moroccan border. It offers an innovative conceptual resource based on a triadic co-genetic epistemological approach, which allows us to overcome the binary oppositions still very present in the contemporary debates in borders studies.

Models of semiotic borders in psychology and their implications: From rigidity of separation to topological dynamics of connectivity

“…The border is a semiotic device that articulates the subject/otherness/world relationship (Simão, 2003): on the one hand, it carries out a limit (reduction of possibilities); and on the other hand, it offers the same conditions for its crossing, that is, creating the conditions for thinking, decision-making, and creativity (Español et al, 2018; see also the notion of border liminality developed in De Luca Picione & Valsiner, 2017, Figure 1).…”

Imagination and mobility in the city: Porosity of borders and human development in divided urban environments

“…For him, they are not in the centre but at the edges, in ‘the lines and zones which separate different ethnic communities, economic classes or functional activities’. The public realm of cities are open systems and borders are both connecting and separating structures: their power is not to erase difference but to establish connections between what is different, while at the same time preserving diversity (Español, Marsico, & Tateo, 2018; Marsico, 2016; Sennet, 2010). Sennett’s point is to assert the value of the open and incomplete, against closure and rigidity of form; his account is compatible with the socio-cultural psychology of borders as tension systems of meaningful relations (Marsico & Tateo, 2017).…”

Historical borders and maps as symbolic supports to master narratives and history education

“…One of the main impacts of this work was to enable an academic revisiting of the concept of borders and a greater understanding of the centrality of borders and limits to the representations that circulate in a society on topics such as space, territory, sovereignty, politics, and cultural processes (Wilson & Donnan, 2012). Recently, authors from the field of psychology have begun to turn their attention to these topics, proposing a theoretical and empirical dialogue between border studies and the contributions of sociocultural psychology (Cubero et al, 2016; Español et al, 2018; Mársico, 2016, 2018). The aim of this paper is to contribute to this incipient dialogue, on the basis of its authors’ previous theoretical (Carretero, 2011; Carretero & Bermudez, 2012) and empirical studies (Carretero & van Alphen, 2014; López et al, 2015).…”

“…From this perspective, we can regard borders as artificial constructions, created by interventions and agreements between people, which physically and symbolically delineate the space within which an imagined national community produces and reproduces itself. In other words, national territory cannot exist without borders and people’s experience of them (Español et al, 2018).…”