Place-making and the bordering of urban space: Interpreting the emergence of new neighbourhoods in Berlin and Budapest

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to theorize border-making processes in urban contexts as exemplary of the ways in which borders within human societies are formed. In fact, the question as to whether socially meaningful borders are created through state-society and systemic relations or whether they ultimately emerge locally out of social relations is not as trivial as it might seem. The concept of ‘bordering’ implies non-finalizable processes in which socio-spatial distinction is constantly created, confirmed and challenged. Far from being solely a product of state territoriality and international relations, borders are also social institutions that are constantly created, maintained and re-created as a means of negotiating the complexities of everyday life. Urban contexts reveal much about the rationales and mechanisms behind bordering processes. Our concrete bordering focus is related to place and to place-making processes that reflect the attributions, appropriations and representations of place ideas. As is argued in this paper, urban borders are a nexus between everyday practices of differentiating social space, the instrumentality of place-making, for example, as a project of urban development, and the ontological need for a sense of rootedness in place. Two case studies of urban change in Budapest and Berlin will be developed that illustrate this nexus.

Lakes, presidents and shopping on mental maps: children’s perceptions of the Finnish–Russian border and the borderland

“…The participants drew cars and roads and wrote that there are many people in Russia (according to some even too many). These together with descriptions of apartment buildings and the cities of Vyborg, St Petersburg and Moscow indicate that the Finnish participants constructed socio-spatial distinctions (van Houtum et al 2005;Scott & Sohn 2018) between the Finnish and Russian sides by considering Russia to be more urban than Finland. They also contrasted the two sides of the borderland by using many characterisations with a negative connotation on the Russian side.…”

“…Since the late 1990s, border scholars have come to approach state borders as more than territorially fixed static lines -they are an inseparable part of people's spatio-temporal activities and mindscapes (Paasi 1996;Prokkola 2008) and are socially constructed through ideology, discourses, political institutions, attitudes and agency (Scott 2015). Thus, borders are 'borderings' that people use for ordering space (constructing socio-spatial distinctions) and negotiating their identities (van Houtum et al 2005;Scott & Sohn 2018).…”

“…The Finnish participants included much fewer elements on the border or its near vicinity than on the Finnish and Russian sides of the map. Thus, it is obvious that the borderline between Finland and Russia played a less significant role for the participants as a physical state boundary than as a tool for ordering the space and making comparisons between the Finnish and Russian sides (van Houtum et al 2005;Scott & Sohn 2018). The participants most often represented the borderline as a place for border crossings, and drew customs and border checkpoints together with roads, railroads, arrows and traffic (cars, trains, tourist buses) crossing the border.…”

“…Like the Finnish participants, the Russian participants included few elements on the border and used it mainly as a symbolic element and a tool for creating socio-spatial distinctions in the borderland (van Houtum et al 2005;Scott & Sohn 2018). All the elements that the Russian participants placed on the border (border crossing points, customs buildings, roads, railroads and gas pipelines) represent it as a place for border-crossings and can be considered connecting features between the two sides of the borderland.…”

“…Currently, scholars studying borders and borderlands approach borders as 'borderings' rather than as mere physical markers of territorial divisions (e.g. Popescu 2012;McKnight & Leonard 2014;Scott 2015;Scott & Sohn 2018). Scott (2015, 27-28) defines bordering as 'everyday construction of borders Virpi Kaisto and Olga Brednikova among communities and groups through ideology, discourses, political institutions, attitudes and agency'.…”