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B/ordering The term b/ording was used in Van Houtum and Van Naerssen's piece titled, "Bordering, Ordering and Othering" and Van Houtum's subsequent pieces. Van Houtum, Kramsch, and Ziefhofer in  B/ordering space  state that "territorial b/order is a normative idea, a belief in the existence and continuity of a territorially binding and differentiated power that only becomes concrete,objectified and real in our own everyday social practices" (3), framing b/order as an active verb. Likewise, (b)ordering is a process that establishes "select[s] and prioritize[s] social relations" to communicate a particular view of desired reality (3). This literature builds on ideas such as Doreen Massey's ideas of space, Foucault and Agamben's ideas of power, Benedict Anderson's ideas of identity, and Ó Tuathail's ideas of geopolitics, among many others.

The purpose of  B/ordering space  is to merge geographers (some who focus on borders and others who do not)to think about borders as not closed units, but not simply free-flowing and nearly non-existent.

The term b/ordering is not always used in border studies, but several other authors utilize this conceptualization of border as an active creator of discourse regarding people, power, and territory.

Anssi Paasi, David Newman, Reece Jones, and John Agnew are a few of the several academics at the forefront of this discussion of b/ordering as an active process implicated in everyday practices throughout society.

Anssi Paasi
Anssi Paasi is a highly cited geographer in discussions of borders as part of discourse. His 1998 article "Boundaries of Social Processes: Territoriality in the World of Flows" is a well-cited piece. In this piece he discusses the idea of border narratives as:

"Since boundaries are an expression of the power structures that exist between societies, a major challenge for boundary research is to deconstruct such power relations in the form of boundary narratives. Boundaries may therefore be comprehended as flows of power in which memories are transformed into things of the present and future. It is of vital importance to analyze how certain rituals and symbols, discourses and practices of power have emerged, taken their current shape, gained in importance, and affected political decisions. This puts the accent on a contextual, culturally and historically sensitive approach to boundary studies"(83).

These narratives are then reinforced and reformulated in institutions such as schools, media, and memorials.

In that vein, he argues we should focus on territorialities (instead of territoriality)in order to capture diverse, overlapping ideas of territory. Through studies of borders in this way, borders do not get lost in a world of flows, but provide a way to look at power and discourse. In later work, he applies these ideas to other topics such as regional identities. In that piece he uses Finland as an example of how EU works to create a regional identity by planning and development policies in Finnish provinces.

David Newman
In David Newman's influential piece "The lines that continue to separate us:borders in our ‘borderless’world," he is trying to also emphasize border narratives, bottom up approach, attention to everyday lives, and interdisciplinary border studies. He argues that the spatial and social ordering is more important than borders as lines:

"the mechanics through which difference is created, exists and is perpetuated, sometimes through the sealing and the closing of the lines, sometimes (paradoxically) through their opening and the creation of the frontier zones of interaction and transboundary contact and cooperation" (156).

And therefore, these boundaries exists throughout society, not just at the physical borders.

He mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this paper and others.

Reece Jones
Jones also thinks about borders as bounding and bordering processes. As a continuation of trying to figure out how we can think about borders and their relationship to power of categorizations, Jones says, "thinking of the boundaries of categories as inchoate – as never fully formed – allows a move away from this paradoxical relationship and creates a space to contest categorization schemes" (185). He also calls for an interdisciplinary boundary studies that not only studies territorial borders, but also those that permeate everyday life such as included/excluded, mountain/hill, terrorist/civilian, etc. He reinforces this idea of boundaries as not only "on-the-ground bordering," but as also broader ideas of categorization throughout society in later work as well.

John Agnew
John Agnew has also looked at the constructedness of borders. He coined the phrase the "territorial trap" that addresses the fact that territories/states/borders seem fixed, and herein lies how they are so potentially powerful. He applies this idea to a historical look at the creation of Greece in Macedonia in his article "No Borders, No Nations: Making Greece in Macedonia." Through this historio-political examination he finds that a nation-state exists after the borders are established. He also sees states as a network in which "locally-specific practices" enter into the process of nation-state creation through interactions with military, education, and governance institutions.

Related Topics

 * Othering
 * National identities
 * Securitization
 * Immigration
 * Sovereignty
 * Territoriality
 * Immigration
 * Sovereignty
 * Territoriality
 * Territoriality
 * Territoriality