Global borderlands: a case study of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Abstract

Abstract:By developing the concept of "global borderlands"-semi-autonomous, foreigncontrolled geographic locations geared toward international exchange-this article shifts the focus of globalization literature from elite global cities and cities on national borders to within-country sites owned and/or operated by foreigners and defined by significant social, cultural, and economic exchange. I analyze three shared features of these sites: semi-autonomy, symbolic and geographic boundaries, and unequal relations. The multimethod analyses reveal how the concept of global borderlands can help us better understand the interactions that occur in the contemporary era of globalization across people of different nationalities, classes, and races/ethnicities as well as the complex dynamics that occur within foreign-controlled spaces. I first situate global borderlands within the literatures of global cities and traditional borderlands. Next, I use the case study of Subic Bay Freeport Zone (SBFZ), Philippines to show (1) how the semiautonomy of global borderlands produces different regulations depending on nationality, (2) how its geographic and symbolic borders differentiate this space from the surrounding community, and (3) how the semi-autonomy of these locations and their geographic and symbolic borders reproduce unequal relations. As home of the former U.S. Subic Bay Naval Base and current site of a Freeport Zone, the SBFZ serves as a particularly strategic research location to examine the different forms of interactions that occur between groups within spaces of unequal power. (Frank 1973;Prebisch 1959;Singer 1949; Chase-Dunn and Grimes 1995; Wallerstein 2004). By definition, these approaches ignore sites of significant international or intercultural exchange and interaction that occur outside these elite spaces.In contrast, scholarship on frontiers, borders, and borderlands recognizes how inequalities are reproduced in places that cross international or intercultural boundaries (Alvarez 1995; Donnan and Wilson 1999). However, we know surprisingly little about how inequalities are maintained and reproduced in spaces that are based on cultural, social, and economic interactions beyond these particular locales and those that occur within foreign-controlled spaces. Examining unequal interactions-namely, those among foreign visitors, local visitors, and local workers in institutionalized, semi-autonomous 1 I am aware of the disputes regarding whether it is within-or between-country inequality that is rising. I use "societies" here to demonstrate that there is an increasing divide between the rich and poor, whether the unit of analysis is within-or between-countries. Global borderlands 5 Global borderlands: A definitionGlobal borderlands are semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange. By "international exchange" I mean the combination of social, cultural, and economic exchanges and interactions, since each cannot be divorced from the others. Economic exchanges are roo...

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