Charting the Global Frontier

Individual borders have their own specific histories, and the policies designed to defend them are shaped by local as well as global factors. As Pratt (2005, p. 185) reminds us: ‘The border is an ongoing accomplishment, yet the processes by which it is continually produced are erased by its apparent self-evidence.’ Constituting borders through geographical barriers or in terms of other taken-for-granted physical referents presents them as ‘primordial, timeless, as part of nature’ (Khosravi, 2010, p. 1), thereby concealing their histories and their contested character. Yet in the face of globalizing pressures, borders are being reshaped in ways that reveal their dynamic and sometimes contradictory functions (Pickering & Weber, 2006). The most striking impact of globalization on the borders of the Global North, and the most relevant for our discussion, is their increasing deterritorialization. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Character (mathematics) · Deterritorialization · Economic geography · Face (sociological concept) · Frontier · Geography · Globalization · Political economy · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · History · Law