Borders in Globalization Conference September 2527 2014 Carleton University and University of Ottawa Ottawa Canada Victor Konrad Carleton University Ottawa Canada victorkonradcarletonca ID: 227837
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Slide1
Conceptualizing borders and culture
Borders in Globalization Conference
September 25-27, 2014
Carleton University and University of Ottawa
Ottawa, Canada
Victor Konrad, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
victor.konrad@carleton.ca
Slide2
The cultural border
Anachronism
of the
Wagah border ceremony in the internet-connected worldPerform and ritualize incised borderBorder, territory and culture all demarcated Slide3
Border culture
Talking
Borders gives voice to communities in border areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia and GuineaTerritory, borders and culture blurred after years
of
war
and diasporaSlide4
Objectives
:
Interrogate
critically the interaction of borders and culture, and to evaluate how notions of border culture, cultural borders and
borderlands
culture
emerged
in the establishment and
successive
development
of
anthropology
,
geography
and
geopolitics
Explore
the
meaning
of
imagining
across
boundaries
:
Imagine
intersection
of
borders
and culture?
Articulation
of
imprints
?
Manifestation
of
imaginaries
?
Assess
border
culture
production
,
materialization
,
building
at
border
and in
borderlandsSlide5
Interaction of culture and borders
and the
emergence
of border cultureThe border is at the nexus of the international and transnational, territorial and extraterritorial, and political and socio- cultural (Fein, 2003)Borders ’work
’
extensively
in a
globalizing
world
of
contact
zones, asymmetrical relationships, increasing flows and displacementsCulture related to and influenced by power (Mitchell, 2000) but need to problematize and define how power and culture interrelateNot just ”all politics is cultural and all culture is political”Left unfulfilled in understanding of how and what culture manifests as it intersects with borders
Transnational
regimes
of
knowledge
(Foucault)
key
forms
of international
power
and
also
key
elements
in
defining
border
culture (Konrad and
Nicol
, 2011)
Understanding
border
culture
entails
relating
international
forces
operating
between
nations
to
transnational
forces
produced
by
the
presence
of
one
nation
within
another
(
Fein
, 2003)
To
capture
both
the ”
essential
” and the ”
imagined
”
qualities
of
hybridization
and
differentiation
at
borders
and in
borderlands
(
Shimoni
, 2006)Slide6
Power, territory and
borders
Thinking
about border culture and cultural borders needs to be located within the evolving thought about territory, borders
and culture
that
has
migrated
vicariously
between the fields of anthropology and geography since their inception.If The Birth of Territory (Elden, 2013) is a ”political technology”, how do we conceptualize border culture emerging in a world of increasing flows?May border culture be conceptualized as the agency of political technology
enabling
both
territorial
delimitation
and
amelioration
?Slide7
Ratzel, the ’super
organic
’, and culture inhabiting and overflowing territoryIn hindsight, one of the great misconceptions in both classical geopolitics and cultural antropology
was
to
view
the nation and the
state
as
bounded
territory.”Raum” is political and cultural space and container of organic state which would ultimately expand and grow beyond its boundariesOrganic state theory to ”lebensraum” to ”weltmacht” (influenced by Malthus, Darwin, Spencer, Turner) Culture becomes super
organic
Borders
become
insignificant and recede before the flow of organized, enlightened, resourceful and entitled peopleFrontier is a zone of transition and peripheral organ of the state (Cahnman 1944)Border culture and the cultural border born in Ratzel’s intertwining of anthropology, politics and geographyIdeologically extended and twisted by Kjellen and Haushofer into ”lebensraum”Mackinder and Spykman bring frontiers back into the discourse of geopolitics Minghi (1963) rebuilds groundwork for border studies in political geography; Meinig (1970) relates culture and territorySlide8
Franz boas
a. l.
kroeber
Cultural boundaries coterminous with ’nation’ and ethnic delineationsConcurrently separating culture areas and differentiating cultural traits Cultural relativism
Transition
and
hybridization
?
Culture
develops
its
own unique style systemsStyle systems become fixed, climax, fatigue and declineTerritories and borders implicit if not explicitCultural boundary coterminous with national borderSlide9
Cultural and
spatial
turns: if cultures are separate long enough a border will form; If cultures are separate
enough
a
border
will
form
Border
is symbol of power which differentiates it from a boundary (Erickson 1997, Chang 2010)Differentiation of cultural border and cultural boundary on basis of imagination as well as power (Johnson and Michaelson 1997)Borderlands transnational imaginary (Saldivar 2006)Borderlands liminal and hybrid
spaces
(
Bhabha
1994,
Kraidy 2005)Borderlands cultures do not revert (Gupta and Ferguson 1992,1997)Influenced by post structuralists Foucault, Derrida, Butler, Lacan, Deleuze and othersCultural turn has liberated concept of border culture from its anthropo-geographical anchoring at the intersection of classical geopolitics, emergent geography and incipient anthropology, refreshed with re-vitalized exploration of identity, affinity and imaginationSlide10
Exploring the cultural
imaginary
at borders and in borderlandsCultural research on borders and borderlands seeks the meaning of imagining across boundariesWhat
clusters
of
attention
and
thinking
are
emerging?Culture is socially constructed and thus imaginedCultural imaginaries evolve in hybrid forms and distinct expressions in border areasCultural rigidities become flexibilities or stronger rigiditiesBorder imaginaries vary greatlyImaginaries are constantly in motionBut, there is a sense of boundaries and
people
keep
their
cultural borders not as essential but as imagined phenomenaCultural imaginaries at the border and in the borderlands link with the cultural meaning of landscape, aesthetics, identities, belonging, settlement, community, migration, work, play, stories and other forms of borderlands experience.Many ways to organize and assemble cultural expressions and affiliations. Offer following groupings:Life sustainingLife enrichingLife securing Slide11
1. Life securing cultural
imaginaries
Land and life in borderlands is different than in heartlandCultural imaginaries required to first secure life in the cross-border region (these
are
not
the
imaginaries
of the
central
state)Protection of land and property in resistance to appropriation from the nation state, food security, confirmed livelihood Threats often visualized and materialized as threats from the nation-state, and resistance is to the state (Juarez/El Paso; West Bank/Israel)Example: scaled engagement, linkage of domestic and international at Canada-US borderSlide12
2. Life sustaining
cultural
imaginariesIntegral to the everyday routine of managing flow of people, goods and ideas of symbiotic if not integrated economic, social and cultural
zone
of
interaction
Need
to
embrace
imaginary of the border as facilitation zone/line rather than space of exclusionSustaining life in the borderlands engages most border provinces and communitiesIllustration: the new New International Trade Crossing bridge between Detroit and WindsorLocally grown and shared cross-border imaginary of life sustaining interaction needs to emergeSlide13
3. Life enriching
cultural
imaginariesForm through mutual engagement and linkage of creative people and agencies across boundary and in borderlandsCultural imaginaries
more
characteristically
developed
in
borderlands
in reaction to state neglect or direct state suppressionIllustration: the NFL in Toronto, CanadaCultural imaginaries maintain and cross other borders for both intra-group cohesion across international boundary and extra-group display of affiliation across the cultural borderCultural imaginary that enriches life becomes the crucible for life sustaining and life securing imaginaries as wellSlide14
Cultural production
,
materialization
and heritage at the border and in the borderlandsDramatic increase in walls, fences and barriers at boundaries, overall hardening of borders to
protect
interests
of
privileged
few
who actually live the promise of globalization and defend its privileges through teichopolitics (Rosiere and Jones, 2012)Growing attention devoted to cultural implications of re-emergence of border walls: walls do not work; symbols of resistance to the constructions themselvesCanvas for displaying reaction as both a political act and a cultural materialization
(
examples
: Mexico, Israel)
Dear
, 2013;
Amilhat-Szary, 2012: hybridity, ’third nation’, new border culture of intertwined identities and daily transnational and transcultural interaction, physical manifestations of fear of incursion, national identity, symbolic cohesionSlide15
The problem
with a
wall
is that it materializes as a lot to leave behind when it is no longer functional or its purpose
has
waned
.
Cultural
production
either essentialized or imaginedRealization brings us to consider what we bring to the border and what we leave behindImaginaries either brought to border or fashioned in borderlandsExpressed as cultural identity or facets of
transnational
identities
performed
or otherwise realized at the borderThese are extensive imaginaries consistent with vast and growing domains of transnationalism and borderlands cultureEssentialized or materialized components of cultural production reinforce identity and belonging, and work as symbols of border cultureBoth imagined and materialized border culture is potentially border culture heritage: statements and clues to who we are and how we have negotiated the borderlandsSome ephemeral: garbage of illegal
migrants
(Sundberg, 2008)
Symbols
of
cold
selectivity
of U.S. Mexico
borderlands
and
Mediterranean
’
death
zones
’
Era
of
security
primacy
commemorated
by
an
array
of
artifacts
:
heritage
of
why
we
did
this
, and
who
we
were
!Slide16
Border culture, cultural
imaginaries
and the cultural heritage of the borderlandsFed by transnational flows, society and culture in each of the world’s 200 nation states
are
interconnecting
with
societies
and
cultures
in
all other units to form transnational societies and transnational cultures. What happens at the borders?Studies show that results are highly variableCulture constructed both within and across boundaries to galvanize nationalism and to extend beyond nationalismIf culture
precedes
borders
hybridization
and re-stiching occurBorder culture, however, very difficult to define as is culture Re-thinking border culture led us back to emergence of geographical and anthropological conceptualizations of territory: seeds of several modern and post-modern ideas about how cultures emerge and connectUnderstanding border culture: relate international forces operating within nations with transnational forces produced by the presence of one nation within another to capture both the material and imagined hybridization and differentiationResonance of symbolic powerCultural turn liberated concept of border culture, and refreshed it with identity,
belonging
,
affinity
considerations
, and
imaginariesSlide17
Borderlands culture
Cultural imaginary links with the meaning of land and life to secure, sustain and enrich life in borderlands and beyond
Security, sustainability and enrichment of vital importance with re-emergence of walls, fences, barriers: ‘third’ nations centered on the wall that would divide them
Polarization, juxtaposition of secured and non-secured spaces and places caused by these dialecticsYet, Social cohesion works in isolationIntegration space grows and pulsesCommunities and loops workMediation operates from bottom-upLocal and regional scale perseveresLiminal culture spaces coalesce
Left with a cultural heritage of borders that is problematical at best, potentially devastating if border dialectic not addressed and mediated by imaginaries that offer to secure, sustain and enrich life at the border and in the borderlandsSlide18
Our goal
,
ultimately
, is to understand more about the interplay of borderlands cultural imaginaries and materializations at the places and in the spaces where nation-states meet
and
interact
.
Approach
goal
with social
scientific
conceptualizations and sensitivities gained from humanitiesSalter (2013) argues that the suture better captures the dual world-creating functions of the border: suture (or /) conveys evocative knitting together inside and outside, signifies and empowers the role of / in cybernetic world, both as agent of separation and integrationWill
borders
become
a
bewildering array of binary cues linked to bar codes intelligible only to computers? Or, does interplay of borders and culture create melodies, songs and perhaps symphonies of interaction to interprete? (Border Songs, Lynch, 2008)Slide19
The language and structure of border songs may be elusive and difficult to understand but we can all comprehend and
appreciate the music.