BORDERscape
BORDERscape is a joint project of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Oregon State University, the University of Warsaw and the University of Washington. This consortium currently applies for an ATLANTIS grant from the EU and FIPSE.
BORDERscape develops joint curricula and teaching formats for issues in border society, culture and policy education. The following issues are of specific interest to us:
Due
to the accelerated processes of globalization and global migration, questions
related to national borders, supra-national borders (such as Schengen) but also
internal/regional borders are high on the political, social, cultural and
educational agendas. These agendas include
·
the
dissolution of traditional borders in terms of financial and economic realities
as witnessed in the late crisis
·
the
reassertion of national borders as a result of post 9/11 security concerns
·
the
reassertion of national policies in the responses to the economic crisis
·
the
emergence of new internal or regional borders in the context of partial
sovereignties, regionalisms and separatist movements and diasporas.
In
addition to these discordant phenomena, borders have long been in a process of
re-definition or even re-formation in answer to economic (NAFTA, European
Union, ASEAN) or political (Schengen, NATO) interests. Moreover, trans-border phenomena
as diverse as cross-border spaces (the Baltic, the Salish Sea or Puget Sound
etc.) and populations (Sinti and Roma, American Indians and First Nations
etc.), migration, cross-cultural contacts and influences, transnational social
movements, environmental and climate transformations as well as health issues
have always informed the definitions, imaginations and realities of borders -
even though today scholars and scientists make out a multiplication of
migratory movements and an acceleration of migration patterns. Skilled
professionals trained to conceptualize, critically reflect and manage the
increasingly complex trans-border policy issues are in high demand.
The following, fundamentally
interrelated concerns (to be reflected in the specializations and symposia
within the four years program of BORDERscape) result from these contexts:
A. National Borders, (trans)national
identities, citizenship and belonging
The
urgency of border studies resides in the paradox reality of simultaneous
globalization and localization (glocalization): on the one hand national
borders have become porous and partially irrelevant, on the other hand they
have reasserted themselves forcefully. This paradox must be understood in the
context of the extensions and limitations of economic globalization across a
range of areas, i.e. material and financial goods and resources, labor
mobility, migration, the movement of information, etc. Increasing flows across
these areas have at times fueled ideological and social backlashes (e.g. anti-immigration
parties, etc.), phenomena posing serious challenges to political systems and
continued globalization. They have also helped engender new senses of
citizenship, belonging and multiple loyalties, which in turn transform national
identities. The partial dissolution of borders has produced the establishment
of new supranational, internal and symbolic borders (trade blocs, bi-national
zones, diasporas etc.). The BORDERscapes project seeks to help students make
greater sense of these often contradictory, yet crucial, processes of the
modern world.
B. Minorities, migration, diasporas
and borders
Borders create, inhibit and condition migratory
flows motivated by the desire for both political and economic freedom. In
addition to existing minority populations with partial sovereignty (American
Indians in the US, First Nations in Canada, the Sorbs and Danish minorities in
Germany), evolving borderland populations or populations within bi-national
cultural zones (as between the US and Mexico) and immigrant populations (first,
second or third generation, diasporic or other) as well as other minority
populations such as the Sinti and Roma in Europe, who have also been forcely
evicted, have transformed the idea of a nation at large and created specific
regional identities as well as cross-cultural identities. Culturally hybrid
languages, literatures and institutions have emerged and shifted the patterns
and models of racial, ethnic, social and cultural diversity. Cross-border
influences and border transgressions have become major topics in cultural
practices. Migratory flows have become policy issues not least in rural regions
(as witnessed in Oregon) and have transformed the geography, educational
policies and institutional organization in urban spaces. The human costs of
border re-alignments or re-enforcements (Schengen, US-Mexican borderlands) and
the concomitant militarizations of borders (including the phenomenon of the
"minutemen") are highly problematic effects of border security and
border policing. The BORDERscape project seeks to enable students to grasp the
specific perspectives of these populations.
C. Borders of the mind, race,
ethnicities, genders and sexualities
External
and internal borders create differences in terms of definitions, policies and
mindsets concerning race, ethnicities, gender roles and sexual differences. At
the same time borders promise (or threaten) different opportunities (and costs)
according to race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Violence against women
(often: of color) is a constant problem of border realities. While sex and
child trafficking across external borders are important transnational policy
issues, attitudes towards race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality across internal
borders are an increasing, contentious issue within countries. In this sense
material borders and symbolic borders interact with each other. The
deterritorialization of cultural communities and what has come to be known as
the feminization of migration has exerted pressure on ideas of purity relating
to race, ethnicity as well as gender identities. At the same time the partial
erosion of borders also leads to various kinds of racial, ethnic and gender
nostalgia, longing to reestablish fixed standards, for instance, of ethnic
affiliation, of masculinity and femininity. BORDERscape aims at heightening the
awareness for these ambivalent effects of borders and border erosion.
D. Borders, health, sustainability and
the environment
To get a first impression of the BORDERscape exchange plans, click (here).