Analysis of Emerging Issues and Perspective in Boundary Studies

As a dynamic phenomenon, boundary is one of the basic issues in political geography and geopolitics. It is not a geographical and fixed phenomenon; rather, it has its own internal dynamic features, creates new realities, and affects the lives of people and groups living in its vicinity. Different types of boundary, such as political, social, economic, and virtual can be impenetrable or penetrable, simple or complex, and single or multiple. Classification of boundary studies is always changing. In the past, most boundary studies exclusively focused on state, but this view has changed today, so that one can witness development of boundary studies beyond the focus on hard international boundaries. Nowadays, not only are boundaries drawn around land states, but also around nations, groups, religions and individuals. However, traditional views about boundary do constitute part of the vast discourse about boundaries during the past decades and have not been totally abandoned. Considering the changes in today’s world and with regard to lack of a theoretical literature about boundary and its changes in political geography and geopolitics, the present study seems well-suited. Hence, this study, reviewing the previous studies on boundary, tries to investigate the emerging issues and perspectives in today’s boundary studies in political geography.
This study is a basic theoretical study conducted through analytic method. The data collection method was library and computer research.
In traditional view, the international boundaries are studies, i.e. lines which separate the land of one state from a neighboring state. This perceptive mostly addresses the typology of boundaries, with respect to the emergence and adaptation with ethnic-language groups (before residence, adaptive, imposed, and abandoned), adaptation with natural features (e.g. mountains, valleys, and rivers), and the function of international boundaries (separation, integration, difference, and conflict). However, in the new discourse, boundary is considered as the geographical sign and construction of “regulative authority” in social relations. As signs of power, boundaries differ with respect to social scale, importance, and stability from international boundaries which mark the border between national states to unique racial, religious, and sexual border to barbed wire borders which specify special areas such processing-export and military regions. Therefore, the key point of geographers’ work is while boundaries are the outcomes of international contracts, economic conditions, or cultural considerations, they are geographically a sign of a “regulative authority”. For instance, international borderlines have been actively constructed for creating and enhancing the norms of “national territory” and “national identity”, and work in line with preserving and supporting the dominance of the state. In the new perspective, boundaries are perceived as dynamic social constructs. Such impacts have been organized around debates between “static nature” and “change”, “stability” and “dynamicity” of the “spatial bounding” of social construction and reconstruction of the boundaries. The recent interests in globalization reflect the importance of “spatial organization of social life” and “boundaries”, particularly, if it is related to hypothetical reduction of the importance of national state. In this view, boundaries – as drawing or limiting the space- are not solely a social construct, but crossing worlds are placed in numerous sets and interfering methods through them, as social world is full of different boundaries. Hence, politics not only considers different boundaries, but reconfigures different relations between different boundaries. This involves important issues like globalization and boundaries (how has globalization affected the concept and studies of boundaries), boundary hierarchies in spatial scales (such as the study of administrative and civil boundaries which affect the daily lives of citizens more than international boundaries as, for instance, the “spatial distribution patterns of phenomena” is affected by such boundaries), the social construction of boundary and identity (the novel studies address the complex process of the construction and maintenance of the boundary with respect to the role of identity discourse in the social construction of boundary) and the management of boundaries following migrations, human force, and application of technology.
Since 1990s, the study of boundaries has gained importance due to factors such as the collapse of Soviet Union, Berlin Wall collapse, globalization, and at the same time, the rise of nationalism. Since then, the superficial stability of the boundaries which was the main feature of boundary studies during the cold war was challenged. On the one hand, there is a new interest in “hard territorial lines” which are consistently drawing and marking lines between countries, and on the other, there is an increasing attention to the nature of bounding and people’s and groups’ residence within different social and spatial areas which have resulted in parallel but far discourses. In this respect, while in traditional perspective, most studies focus on international boundaries and their typology, in new perspective, boundary is considered as a line which separates various spatial and social scales. Most of the present studies in critical geography reflect the interest in boundaries as dynamic social constructs and “boundary” has changed into a part of the more extensive cultural geography. The key point in geographers’ work is that while boundaries are the outcomes of international contracts, economic conditions, or cultural considerations, they are geographically a sign of a “regulative authority” in social relations. However, not all boundaries have the regulative effect by separating “we-they”, such as the boundaries drawn for developing constituencies. Also, in cases where there is a strong “state/society” boundary, drawing boundaries in places like courts and free business councils, can serve as a greatly competitive mediating process – through the emergence of power relations between the state and daily social life – which is full of geographical – political struggles and can be interpreted again. Hence, it can be argued that borders, rather than working as stable lines, act as processes, discourses, symbols and networks. Also, the study of boundaries in today’s word requires a hierarchical and multi-dimensional perspective.