Borders: Cities, Boundaries, and Frontiers

Theories of globalization have increasingly looked at how processes of bordering and re-bordering work in what is seen to be a more borderless world with greater mobility and fluidity. A growth in border studies has resulted in a renewed interest across the social sciences in nations, nationalism, and the state, and how these concepts relate to issues of citizenship, sovereignty, and security. While border studies have traditionally focused on international geopolitical borders, recent scholarship has examined the boundaries and frontiers of regions, provinces, towns, and cities. These urban entities, whether capitals, cosmopolitan centers, global cities, suburbs, or remote rural towns, have their own internal and external borders, many of which parallel, intersect, and subvert other sorts of boundaries. This essay explores how borders and border studies may contribute to urban anthropology, and vice versa, as they wrestle with the issues of territory and territoriality.