Conceptualizing borders and culture - PowerPoint Presentation

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.