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This book brings together insights from border scholars and philosophers to ask how we are to define and understand concepts of borders today. Borders have a defining role in contemporary societies. Take, for example, the 2016 US election and the UK Brexit referendum, and subsequent debate, where the rhetoric and symbolism of border controls proved fundamental to the outcomes. However, borders are also becoming ever more multifaceted and complex, representing intersections of political, economical, social, and cultural interests.
For some, borders are tangible, situated in time and place; for others, the nature of borders can be abstracted and discussed in general terms. By discussing borders philosophically and theoretically, this edited collection tackles head on the most defi ning and challenging questions within the fi eld of border studies regarding the defi nition of its very object of study. Part 1 of the book consists of theoretical contributions from border scholars, Part 2 takes a philosophical approach, and Part 3 brings together chapters where philosophy and border studies are directly related.
Borders intersect with the key issues of our time, from migration, climate change vulnerability, terror, globalization, inequality, and nationalism, to intertwining questions of culture, identity, ideology, and religion. This book will be of interest to those studying in these fields, and most especially to researchers of border studies and philosophy.
List of contents
Foreword Introduction: Thinking Theoretically and Philosophically about the Concept of the Border Part I Border studies 1. How Do We Theorise Borders and Why Should We Do It?: Some Theoretical and Methodological Challenges 2. Borders and Boundaries?: Reflections on Conceptual Distinctions of Borders in Sociological Theory 3. Borderwork and its Contraries: Boundary-making and the re-imagining of borders 4. Dwelling Space versus Geopolitical Space: Reexamining Border Studies in Light of the "Crisis of Borders" 5. Outflanking the Border Wall at La Frontera Part II Philosophy 6. The Bounds of Hospitality 7. Emplaced at the Thresholds of Life: Toward a Phenomenological An-Archeology of Borders and Human Bounding 8. Homeland and Politics of Space 9. Translating as Bordering: An Encounter with the Foreign Sasa Hrnjez 10. Limit and Threshold: Knowledge and Ethics in the Making 11. One Small Step: Onto-politics of the Limit as Ontology of the Possible Transformation Part III Border Studies and Philosophy 12. Bridging Border Studies and Philosophy: The Border and the Limit 13. The Janusface of the Monad versus the Nomad; an essay on the philosophy of B/ordering and Othering 14. Moving Borders 15. Walled Borders: Beyond the Barriers of Immunity of the Nation-States 16. Beyond Borders: Autoimmune Practices in a State of Law (an aporia) 17. Threshold Experience and the Delineation of Boundaries Conclusion
About the author
Anthony Cooper is a research fellow at Keele University, UK.
Søren Tinning is a journalist and independent scholar.
Summary
This book brings together insights from border scholars and philosophers to ask how we are to define and understand concepts of borders today. Borders have a defining role in contemporary societies.
