‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

Justice and the Politics of Difference

Europe and the People without History

The study of borders has undergone a renaissance during the past decade. This is reflected in an impressive list of conferences, workshops and scholarly publications. This renaissance has been partly due to the emergence of a counternarrative to the borderless and deterritorialized world discourse which has accompanied much of globalization theory. The study of borders has moved beyond the limited confines of the political geography discourse, crossing its own disciplinary boundaries, to include sociologists, political scientists, historians, international lawyers and scholars of international relations. But this meeting of disciplines has not yet been successful in creating a common language or glossary of terms which is relevant to all scholars of borders. Central to the contemporary study of borders are notions such as 'borders are institutions', the process of 'bordering' as a dynamic in its own right, and the border terminologies which focus on the binary distinctions between the 'us' and 'them', the 'included' and the 'excluded'. Borders should be studied not only from a top-down perspective, but also from the bottom up, with a focus on the individual border narratives and experiences, reflecting the ways in which borders impact upon the daily life practices of people living in and around the borderland and transboundary transition zones. In positing an agenda for the next generation of border-related research, borders should be seen for their potential to constitute bridges and points of contact, as much as they have traditionally constituted barriers to movement and communication.

The lines that continue to separate us: borders in our `borderless' world

Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence

This was the introductory article to the special issue of Regional Studies dedicated to the issue of 'borders and border regions' and it was intended to provide a context for the other, more specialised chapters which tackle issues such as governance, immigration and social discourse in border regions and across borders.

Borders, Border Regions and Territoriality: Contradictory Meanings, Changing Significance

The accelerating globalization of economic and cultural life and the growing density of international and supranational institutions have led many to assume the decreasing significance, even practical redundancy, of state borders. Yet, the case for redundancy is weak. Far from disappearing, state borders have proliferated with the break-up of the Soviet bloc. They have become more flexible, differentiated and salient as the Single European Market has re-configured the borders of the European Union (EU). Internal and external border regions have become sites of extensive cross-border cooperation promoted by a multiplicity of local governmental and non-governmental agencies, their respective national governments and the European Commission. While the number of state borders is increasing, their changing functions and meanings are becoming manifest through issues such as environmental pollution, animal diseases, crime, immigration, refugees, asylum seekers and the de-regulation and re-regulation of the global economy. Yet, academics and key policy have often seen them as marginal to both disciplinary and policy concerns. The scale of recent border change, however, has encouraged a substantial growth in research on borders across a range of social science disciplines and a renewed policy interest in border regions by the EU and its member states (see for example, Hansen, 1983; Sahlins, 1989; Eger and Langer, 1996; M. Anderson, 1996; O’Dowd and Wilson, 1996; Newman, 1998; Paasi, 1998; Sparke, 1998; Wilson and Donnan, 1998; Anderson and O’Dowd, 1999). This renewed interest has been accompanied by a growing recognition of the fundamental importance of boundaries in social life. Wallace (1992: 14), a leading analyst of European integration, notes that the question of territorial boundaries is central to the study of political systems, legal jurisdictions and socio-economic interaction. The Indian sociologist, T.K. Oommen has even suggested that the ‘rise and fall, the construction and deconstruction of various types of boundaries is the very story of human civilisation and of contemporary social transformation’ (cited in Paasi, 1998: 83) This essay attempts to provide an overview of the changing significance of EU state borders as a contribution to the analysis of

The Changing Significance of European Borders

The first part of the paper explores some of the reasons why contemporary border studies understate the full significance of state borders and their global primacy. It is argued that this failing is rooted in a much wider lack of historical reflexivity—a reluctance to acknowledge the historical positioning (the ‘where and when’) of contemporary border studies themselves. This reluctance encourages a form of pseudohistory, or ‘epochal thinking’, which disfigures perspective on the present. Among the consequences are (a) exaggerated claims of the novelty of contemporary border change, propped up by poorly substantiated benchmarks in the past; (b) an incapacity to recognise the ‘past in the present’ as in the various historical deposits of state formation processes; and (c) a failure to recognise the distinctiveness of contemporary state borders and how they differ from other borders in their complexity and globality. The second part of the paper argues for a recalibration of border studies aimed at balancin...

From a ‘Borderless World’ to a ‘World of Borders’: ‘Bringing History Back in’:

Why study borders now?, James Anderson, Liam O'Dowd and Thomas M. Wilson the changing significance of European borders, Liam O'Dowd borders of comfort - spatial economic bordering processes in the European Union, Henk van Houtum cross-border environmental governance and EC Law, Richard Macrory and Sharon Turner talking across frontiers - building communication between emergency services, Edward Johnson cross-border police cooperation - the Kent experience, Frank Gallagher cross-border governance in the Baltic sea region, James Scott the Euroregion and the maximization of social capital - pro-Europa Viadrina, Jonathan Grix and Vanda Knowles cross-border cooperation in the Upper Adriatic, Milan Bufon.

New Borders for a Changing Europe : Cross-Border Cooperation and Governance

`since 1972 the considerable ideological resources of the British state have been used to claim that the Northern Ireland state was decisively reformed by a series of British "interventions" which culminated in the demise of Stormont and the imposition of Direct Rule from Westminster.' And it ends : `The UK state is not "above" the Northern Ireland problem, it is an integral part of that problem .'

Liam O'Dowd

Papers

Borders, Border Regions and Territoriality: Contradictory Meanings, Changing Significance

The Changing Significance of European Borders

From a ‘Borderless World’ to a ‘World of Borders’: ‘Bringing History Back in’:

New Borders for a Changing Europe : Cross-Border Cooperation and Governance

Northern Ireland: Between Civil Rights and Civil War