Border studies and the risk of ossification

Lacy, Rodrigo Bueno; Houtum, H.J. van

doi:10.1177/2043820613487972

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…We live in a time of paranoid borderism, a time of intense paranoia of the Other, and a time where the privileging of the nation state as the symbolic container of space, our territory, seems to have made a lurid return to the European continent (Paasi 1999;Brenner & Elden 2009;Elden 2009;Painter 2010;Murphy 2013;Elden 2013). And as van Houtum and Rodrigo Bueno Lacy write in this issue of Fennia, it has resulted in a normalization of extreme politics in Europe (see also Bueno Lacy & van Houtum 2013Ferrer-Gallardo & van Houtum 2014). For despite globalization, despite the increasing movement of people across national borders, despite the supranational European Union, and despite a concerted marketing of multiculturalism in the urban centers of Europe, the desire to find comfort in the 'we' of the nation, the continuing allure of dwelling in a nostalgic territorial fatherland, and the pre-defined 'purity' and singularity of a national identity, paradoxically remain (Nancy 2000;van Houtum et al 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme geographies: a response from a dependent semi-periphery of the post-neoliberal Europe

Riding

2017

Fennia

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We live in a time of paranoid borderism, a time of intense paranoia of the Other, and a time where the privileging of the nation state as the symbolic container of space, our territory, seems to have made a lurid return to the European continent. The consequences of this socio-spatial ordering and othering, the legacy of Euclidian thinking, and Cartesian models of knowing the world, can become an extreme geography: a form of cartographic cleansing that seriously needs to be addressed. In this short response to the Fennia Lecture given by Professor Henk van Houtum on Extreme Geographies, I offer a report from a region that has become a dependent semi-periphery of the new largely neoliberal Europe that emerged post-1989: a new Europe that is now entering a post-neoliberal era and is becoming increasingly neofascist. I draw from this region as a warning from history, and argue that the hopeful politics of the New Left in the former Yugoslavia provide an answer. The New Left, as it has been termed, in the Post-Yugoslav space, articulates the need for a new radically democratic European project: a project that is no longer neoliberal, but equally a project that does not turn to a nostalgic nationalism, a neofascism, or indeed any other form of authoritarian capitalism.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme geographies: a response from a dependent semi-periphery of the post-neoliberal Europe

Riding

2017

Fennia

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“…What we aim to say is that, even though the EU might be creating a questionable or false narrative on Europe-what would be a true narrative, anyway?-, its consequences in terms of lifealtering policies are very real. Perhaps the most troubling consequence of the discourse about Europe which EUrocartography legitimizes is its paradoxical political effect (Bueno Lacy and Van Houtum 2013). EU maps are a two-edged sword: even though they try to pin down Europe to justify policies of inclusion, they are being recycled by populist EUrosceptic political parties interested in pushing their own national-bound policies of exclusion.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Our intuition is that the EU's exclusionary border doctrine with regard to migration and security is not safeguarding its wealth and prosperity but corroding the EU's very foundations (see Bueno Lacy and Van Houtum 2013). We are driven by the conviction that in order to open the boundaries of EU border policy it is first indispensable to challenge the limits of the rhetoric that allows current migratory and security practices to be acceptable and even desirable.…”

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Lies, Damned Lies & Maps: The EU's Cartopolitical Invention of Europe

Lacy

Houtum

2015

Journal of Contemporary European Studies

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Ever since the 15th century, empires have invented Europe as a meaningful political space to legitimize territorial ambitions and establish hierarchies between Europeans and professedly lesser geocultural entities. Maps have played a crucial role in naturalizing the geopolitical arbitrariness-what we term cartopolitics-that has underlain such Europeanization. In this article, we draw on historical maps to expose the cartopolitical cleansing done by the EUtoday's grand Europeanizing power-and free Europe from its hegemonic cartopolitical inscription. Heavy on symbolism yet light on mathematical accuracy, old maps of Europe readily earn our mistrust. Meanwhile, EU cartography, foreseeing that strident symbolism could antagonize its members' national iconography and hamper enlargement, offers a plain technicality divested of political allegory that demands indifference. However, the seemingly unobjectionable Europe portrayed by EU maps relies on decorative strategies analogous to those of ancient maps and should arouse similar suspicion. Ironically, for all their subtlety to cultivate an affiliation with Brussels, EU maps inadvertently prop up Eurosceptical discourses chewing at the EU's external appeal and internal cohesion. Our conviction is that dislocating Europe's borders to show Europes that were and could be may inspire refreshing imaginations about the meaning and boundaries of Europe and the EU.

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Revisiting ‘Bordering, Ordering and Othering’: An Invitation to ‘Migrate’ Towards A Politics of Hope

Brambilla

2020

Tijd voor Econ & Soc Geog

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‘Bordering, Ordering and Othering’ is a landmark in the scholarship of the ‘processual turn’ in border studies. This commentary provides some reflections on van Houtum and van Naerssen’s paper that seek to foster not only an appreciation of the research avenues it has opened but also a critical interrogation of its shortcomings. Rethinking borders as processes has significantly contributed to the conceptual evolution of borders. And yet, I am concerned with how the b/ordering‐othering perspective can be questioned and broadened. In so doing, I conclude by taking up van Houtum and van Naerssen’s invitation to problematise the border, questioning certainty and securities provided by the exclusive modern state‐centric way of thinking borders based on fixed and everlasting binary framing, which blind us to the constant state of becoming of political and social order. It’s an invitation to ‘migrate’ towards an alternative politics of hope.

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Border studies and the risk of ossification

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Extreme geographies: a response from a dependent semi-periphery of the post-neoliberal Europe

Extreme geographies: a response from a dependent semi-periphery of the post-neoliberal Europe

Lies, Damned Lies & Maps: The EU's Cartopolitical Invention of Europe

Revisiting ‘Bordering, Ordering and Othering’: An Invitation to ‘Migrate’ Towards A Politics of Hope

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