Securitized Borderlands

Abstract

Borders have recently attracted a lot of academic scrutiny. Two very distinct types of literature have attempted to capture the current evolution of borders. The first one, leaning more toward the field of security studies, puts the emphasis on the rampant securitization, the coercive dimension of borders, and their divisive consequences. The second, looks at the rich environment surrounding borders, where boundaries are seen as the meeting point of a variety of cultures and communities. Those social spaces, known as borderlands, are the cradle of hybrid identities and transnational networks that contest the State's claim to ultimate sovereignty over its territory. Against this backdrop, the ambition of this special issue lies in its aim to fill theoretically and empirically this gap by looking at securitized borderlands. This introductory article delineates the contours of and puts together the main findings of both security studies on borders and borderlands studies. It announces the objectives of the subsequent articles, which together look into the interaction between the securitized borders and the social spaces they both obstruct and dynamize. In spite of and within this peculiarly adverse environment of "securitized borderlands," cross border societies remain in existence, resist, comply, and adjust. Paradoxical border(land)sBorders encircle the territory on which a State claims sovereignty and demarcate its spatial boundaries. They materialize the far edges of the State's monopoly on the legitimate use of force. They are thus limits that need to be defended and simultaneously contact points between states and their respective citizens.On the one hand, borders are the outer limits to the spatial scope of State's power and, as such, strategic lines that need to be defended against unwanted intrusions. From a historical perspective, States formation resulted from the successful waging of wars. It meant that new territories were integrated and powers centralized (Tilly 1992). Therefore, borders created States as much as States created borders (Anderson 1996). On that basis, the management of borders-and their much-discussed degree of permeability-

Securitizing the Pakistan-Afghanistan Borderland: impacts on the Ahmadzai Wazirs

“…This so-called Copenhagen School asserts that issues are constructed as security ones through "a specific speech act… some issues are selectively depicted as posing an existential threat to a given community. Once construed as such, security experts and professional politicians are responsible for taking the threatening matters into their own skilled hands (Deleixhe et al, 2019)." This aspect of border fencing seems quite relevant particularly in the case of fencing the Pak-Afghan border keeping in view its history and the irredentist claim by successive Afghan governments over parts of Pakistan's territory.…”

Repositioning security spaces of exclusion, exception, and integration in China–Southeast Asia borderlands

“…The dynamic, evolving spatial processes of repositioning the border are fundamental to understanding the salient role of borders in globalization. In other global contexts, studies have documented emergence of new or expanded zones of border securitization as trade, migration, and other fl ows across borders have increased (Deleixhe et al, 2019). The establishment and thickening of the Schengen Zone around the European Union is well documented (Coman, 2019).…”

Borderlands from the resilience perspective: Diversification of state borders in former Austrian Galicia

“…Donnan & Wilson, 2007; Wilson, 2012). Rather it reinforces the paradoxical nature of borders which “are demarcating lines that call for extensive protection and a regime of strict closure” and at the same time “are a gateway to transnational opportunities and their opening should be carefully but liberally managed” (Deleixhe, Dembinska, & Danero Iglesias, 2019, p. 640). Central and Eastern Europe is a particularly interesting field of study in the context of this diversity, since the topics of the emergence of the statehood and changes of borderlines are relatively (in comparison with Western Europe) new here.…”