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Structures and narratives ofborder change: Perspectivesfrom North America, Europeand the Middle EastSeán L'Estrange a & Liam O'Dowd ba Lecturer in the Department of Politics andInternational Relations, Swansea University, Walesb Professor in the School of Sociology and SocialPolicy and Director of the Centre for InternationalBorders Research, Queen's University Belfast,Northern IrelandPublished online: 21 Nov 2011.

To cite this article: Sen L'Estrange & Liam O'Dowd (2008) Structures and narratives ofborder change: Perspectives from North America, Europe and the Middle East, Journalof Borderlands Studies, 23:1, 1-11, DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2008.9695685

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Journal of Borderlands StudiesVolume 23 • No. 1 • Spring 2008

Structures and Narratives of BorderChange: Perspectives from North America,Europe and the Middle EastSeán L’Estrange and Liam O’Dowd*

Introduction

The proliferation, differentiation, and re-configuration of political borders are in-tegral parts of the story of contemporary globalization. In this context, borders andborderlands have proved to be compelling sites for studying empirically the relation-ships between processes of capital accumulation, new forms of governance and trans-formations of identity manifest in different forms at the level of large geo-economicblocs, states, and sub-state regions. While the thrust of capital accumulation may be totranscend fixed territorial borders—notably those of national states—states neverthe-less remain essential to regulating and supporting such processes. Thus transnationalblocs—such as the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the European Union(EU), and the Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur, or Common Market of the South)—can be seen to figure as part of a new bordering strategy for the global economy inwhich classical national state borders are not so much replaced as displaced whilstacquiring new functions and meanings.

In the course of such “global re-bordering,” geo-economic blocs remain heavilyinfluenced by the military and policing power of the United States, which since Sep-tember 11th, 2001 has continually prioritized and promoted a global “security” dis-course. This discourse (and its associated practices) can be seen reflected in the pan-demic of wall and fence construction between states and their neighbors in many areasof the world (Dyer 2007) as well as in the ever more elaborate policing strategiesdevised to control and regulate the movement of people across borders. The latter isarguably at its most advanced in the European Union. Here, the complex set of rulesembodied in the Schengen agreements—to which the majority of EU member statessubscribe—institutes the removal of physical border controls between subscribingmember states yet replaces such controls with less visible surveillance procedures andinformation sharing that enables the monitoring and regulation of movement in a newborder security architecture. As Andreas (2003, 78) observes: “in many cases, moreintensive border law enforcement is accompanying the demilitarization and economicliberalization of borders.”

Yet economic and political governance are also linked to the proliferation of ethno-national conflicts. In the second half of the twentieth century, the proliferation of intr-

*L’Estrange is Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations atSwansea University, Wales. O’Dowd is Professor in the School of Sociology and SocialPolicy and Director of the Centre for International Borders Research, Queen’s UniversityBelfast, Northern Ireland.

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2 Structures and Narratives of Border Change

astate ethno-national conflicts provides a sharp reminder of the ongoing tension be-tween collective identities—typically associated with particular “homelands”—andexisting state territory (Fearon and Laitin 2003). Thus many border conflicts can beseen to be the product of the failure to effect a durable marriage between “state” and“nation.” Border issues arising from the intersecting (and sometimes contradictory)priorities of economic and political governance and processes of state and nation for-mation form the substantive focus of the following articles.

This Special Issue has its origins in the third biennial conference of the Associa-tion of Borderlands Studies held in Europe in June 2006. Organized by the Centre forInternational Border Research (CIBR) at Queen’s University Belfast, the conferencetheme “Structures and Narratives of Border Change” brought together scholars fromNorth America, Europe, and the Middle East. While this issue comprises but a smallselection of articles derived from papers originally presented at the conference, allthree areas are represented. Each of the articles addresses borders as structures of powerand all register the importance of perceptions of borders and of narratives in particular.While the emphasis given to structures and narratives varies, as does the representationof the relationship between them, all the contributors remind us of the power relation-ships inscribed in borders, the many different levels at which borders are being formedand re-configured, and the significance of the many—and often confrontational—dis-courses that are implicated in border change.

Three of the following articles consider the interface of economic and politicalgovernance within the large geopolitical blocs of NAFTA (Ackleson and Kastner, Nicol)and the EU (Dimitrovova). Recent border studies literature underlines the ubiquity ofthe search for “security” as economic globalization intensifies. Nowhere is this searchmore intense than in the richer parts of the globe—notably in North America and Eu-rope—where the economic liberalization of borders is most advanced. (See, for ex-ample, Brunet-Jailly 2007). The borders of developing macro-regional blocs such asNAFTA and the EU demonstrate the complexities of reconciling burgeoning discoursesof border security to the imperatives of a global economy predicated on the enhancingthe cross-border circulation of commodities. Knotter’s article is a reminder of histori-cal tensions between trans-border cultural projects and national borders—albeit withinthe now relatively benign context of the EU. While Khamaisi’s contribution is a salu-tary reminder of the contemporary relationship between imperialism, war, violence,and colonialism in border formation. His empirical focus is the “Green Line”—a highlycontested, if still embryonic, “national” border within Israel/Palestine. In many ways,both his and Knotter’s account hold up mirrors to the violence inscribed in all stateborders, however benign and peaceful they may (or may not) become.

In the next three sections we trace the themes woven through the five articles inthis Special Issue. Firstly, we point to the impact of transcontinental regionalization onnational and macro-regional borders in North America via the contributions of Acklesonand Kastner and Nicol. In the second section, the focus shifts to the external andinternal borders of the EU examined respectively by Dimitrovova and Knotter. Fi-nally, we highlight the issues arising from the deep-rooted border conflict associatedwith state and nation-formation in Israel/Palestine.

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Volume 23 • No. 1 • Spring 2008 Journal of Borderlands Studies 3

Globalization, Regionalization, and Border Transformations inNorth America

Few state borders have been as pacific and uncontested as the 49th parallel thatmarks the border between Canada and the USA. For long celebrated by both Canadi-ans and U.S. citizens as “the longest undefended frontier in the world,” this sharedperception of the U.S.-Canada border has come under increased scrutiny in recentyears—not least by U.S. government officials. Since the inception of the Free TradeArea between Canada and the U.S. in 1987, its extension and expansion to includeMexico under the auspices of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) in 1994,and the heightened security concerns of the U.S. after the attacks of September 11th,2001, both the conventional functioning and traditional perception of the U.S.-Canadaborder have been rendered increasingly problematic.

On the one hand, increased trade flows stimulated by economic liberalization gen-erated bottlenecks at regular border crossing-points. Conventional management of bordercorridors thus revealed their limitations in the face of increased volumes of cross-bor-der traffic and trade. At the same time, heightened U.S. concerns with national securitycompounded the growing problems of managing cross-border trade. As tighter con-trols on cross-border movements under the auspices of an intensified U.S. securityregime exacerbated backlogs and bottlenecks at the major crossing points between thetwo states, a new initiative known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of NorthAmerica (SPP) was launched in March 2005. Primarily a response to growing border-management problems—yet also a component of the wider project of economic inte-gration and interstate cooperation between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—this initia-tive has taken shape in such a way as to raise important questions about the nature,form, and prospects of interstate collaboration and cross-border cooperation withinNorth America. In doing so, the initiative raises pertinent questions about the nature ofstate borders in an increasingly globalized world, and particularly so when macro-political regions and geo-economic blocs come to assume some of the properties, pow-ers, and functions conventionally regarded as the exclusive preserve of the nationalstate.

In “‘Routinizing’ Cooperation and Changing Narratives: The Security and Pros-perity Partnership of North America,” Jason Ackleson and Justin Kastner provide anaccount of the creation and development of this initiative. Placing the SPP in the con-text of globalization, transcontinental regionalization, and the specific—even local-ized—problems presented by the U.S.-Canada border, Ackleson and Kastner arguethat not only has the SPP emerged as a particular response to incipient problems ofborder management, but that it has contributed to the transformation of the dominantnarrative of the U.S.-Canada border and to the creation of new kinds of borders. Draw-ing upon interviews with key officials and stakeholders, and analyzing a range of offi-cial documents concerned with the design and implementation of the SPP, Acklesonand Kastner show that the traditionally sanguine perception of the U.S.-Canada borderhas largely been displaced by a new perception of the border as symbolizing “danger.”They note how this perception is most prominent amongst U.S. government officials,yet is also common amongst their Canadian counterparts and the major stakeholdersaffected by the problematic functioning of conventional border management practices.Once celebrated as “undefended,” the U.S.-Canada border is now, they argue, prima-rily perceived as “defenseless.”

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Ackleson and Kastner suggest, however, that this shift towards a “securitization”of the U.S.-Canada border has not been allowed to impair its functioning as a conduitfor trade, cross-border market access, and transnational production relations. Rather,they suggest that the SPP represents an innovative attempt to “square the circle” oftightened border security on the one hand, and increased cross-border trade flows onthe other. The authors describe in the detail the ways in which the SPP took shape anddeveloped both alongside and outside the formal institutions and procedures ofNAFTA—giving it a kind of flexibility and adaptability that enabled it to reconcilecompeting demands of free trade and tightened security. They note how the SPP oper-ates through varied state agencies and working groups engaged in bilateral and trilat-eral activities, and they suggest that the specific modus operandi and successful opera-tion of the SPP stems in large part from the role played by businesses and associationsin the inception and design of the SPP. Concerned with the effects that unimaginativeand unilateral securing of the border on the part of U.S. authorities would have forcross-border cooperation and trade relationships, Ackleson and Kastner draw upon theinternational political economy framework elaborated by Milner (1997) to highlightthe significance of domestic economic interests in shaping state policy, and in doing sothey suggest that the role of such interests needs to be recognized and factored into theanalysis of the SPP as a policy if it is to be properly understood.

The SPP as launched in March 2005—and as implemented and developed subse-quently—has therefore taken shape in such a way as to enable both concerns for secu-rity and trade to be reconciled in theory and in practice. An important part of this iswhat the authors refer to as “routinized cooperation,” viz. a mode of cross-border co-operation and harmonized border-management on the part of U.S. and Canadian offi-cials that extends and revitalizes preexisting practices, procedures, and protocols ofcooperation, whilst grafting new forms of interaction onto the old, and introducingnew rules and regulations whereby such “harmonization” can be achieved. This modeof policy-making—and the resultant institutional outcomes and incipient “border re-gime” represented by the SPP—raises questions about its wider significance as a har-binger of the kinds of cross-border cooperation one might expect to develop withinNorth America. Whether as part of NAFTA, or parallel to—yet outside of—such treaty-constituted frameworks (as is the case with the SPP), Ackleson and Kastner draw atten-tion to the way in which the kinds of cooperation institutionalized in the SPP fall out-side the sphere of parliamentary scrutiny and they query to what extent that renders itinherently undemocratic. In addition, they question the sustainability of the new narra-tive of “trade friendly security,” suggesting that the current reconciliation of the twomay be transient and/or overly dependent upon favorable political and economic winds.Nevertheless, they suggest that whatever the ultimate fate of the SPP, future initiativesaimed at reconfiguring state borders, cross-border relationships, and interstate coop-eration within the North American continent are likely to be similar in form to thatrepresented by the SPP and to involve comparable kinds of practices and protocols.

The implications of globalization, transcontinental regionalization, and the placeand role of the U.S. in reshaping and reconfiguring state borders within the Americas,are also examined in our second article. In “U.S. Hegemony in the 21st Century: Cuba’sPlace in the Regionalizing Geopolitics of North America and Caribbean Countries,”Heather Nicol focuses upon an important aspect of “the southern frontier” of the U.S.,viz. the small Caribbean state of Cuba. Since the overthrow of the Batista regime inJanuary 1959 in the course of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba has come to occupy a piv-

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otal place in U.S. foreign policy. Represented as a politically “deviant” and “danger-ous” neighbor—and hence the polar opposite of the U.S.’s exemplary northern neigh-bor, Canada—U.S. Cuban policy has thereby assumed greater importance in U.S. con-ceptions of geopolitics, international relations, and border policy and practices than itwould otherwise have merited. This “overdetermined” significance—not least for U.S.attempts to shape and construct an American hemisphere in its image and in accor-dance with its interests—provides the point of entry into Nicol’s examination of thenature and scope of U.S. leadership and influence in restructuring the (northern) Ameri-cas into a geopolitical entity and geo-economic region.

Drawing upon the constructivist approach to International Relations representedby the work of Agnew (2003, 2005) and Slater (2004), Nicol highlights the importanceof political culture(s) and geopolitical discourse(s) in shaping foreign policy practicesand mediating the construction of interstate relations and border regimes within emer-gent geopolitical and geo-economic regions. Thus in contrast to Ackleson and Kastner’sfocus upon how systemic changes prompted the revision of dominant narratives withrespect to the Canada-U.S. border, Nicol focuses upon how the narratives inscribedwithin geopolitical discourse shape the practices, projects, and alliance-building pro-grams of states within the North American and Caribbean region. In particular, Nicol isinterested in the significances of Cuba for such projects as they unfold within the Ameri-cas under U.S. sponsorship and guidance. For long represented as a “deviant” statewithin the U.S. political imaginary, Nicol investigates to what extent such perceptionsand narratives have informed the foreign policies of neighboring states that have beendrawn increasingly close to the U.S. through its region-building activities.

Paying close attention to the lead role played by the U.S. in attempting to constructa new geopolitical “America” from the plurality of states that constitute the Americas,Nicol argues that notwithstanding the dominant position of the U.S. within the NorthAmerican continent and Caribbean region, it nevertheless does not always succeed inshaping the foreign policy practices of its neighbors through its institution-buildingactivities. Closer trading relationships with Canada and Mexico under the auspices ofNAFTA may have shifted Canadian and Mexican foreign policy stances towards Cubain such a way as to make them more consonant with the position of the U.S., but eventhese modest shifts have been accompanied by resistance and opposition on the part ofCanadian and Mexican governments. Most conspicuously, in the case of the 1996 HelmsBurton Act that aimed to penalize non-U.S. nationals engaged in constructive eco-nomic relationships with Cuba, both Canada and Mexico resisted this piece of U.S.legislation as an aggressive extraterritorial imposition on their respective citizens andas an infringement of their sovereignty as states. In each case, the rules and protocolsof NAFTA were invoked to defend their positions, with the Helms Burton Act held upas in breach of NAFTA agreements as well as being declared to be of doubtful standingin international law.

Nevertheless, Nicol suggests that the U.S. has had greater success in reorientingthe foreign policy positions of Canada and Mexico than those of the smaller Caribbeanstates. The former pair, Nicol argues, proved more susceptible to an alternative articu-lation of the U.S. position on Cuba that recast its stance in terms of “human rights” and“democracy”—producing a notable shift in their respective policies towards Cuba inthe first years of the new millennium. This “softer” language—with its more conspicu-ously universal resonance—facilitated a convergence amongst the three NAFTA mem-bers so that Cuba could more readily be designated a “problematic” member of the

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6 Structures and Narratives of Border Change

political community of the Americas in line with the traditional U.S. designation of itas a political “deviant.” Accordingly, this new geopolitical conception of Cuba focusesupon its “moral record” rather than its erstwhile Cold War alignment or state-socialisteconomic arrangements.

Notwithstanding such shifts in geopolitical discourse, Nicol nevertheless suggeststhat the progressive deepening of economic ties between the U.S. and its NAFTA part-ners underpin the shifts in the foreign policies of Canada and Mexico. As a conse-quence of NAFTA membership, Nicol argues that the increased importance of tradewith the U.S. creates the space for foreign policy convergence and mutual alignmentwith respect to the treatment of Cuba as a recognized member of the Americas. Thesolidarities of subordinate states surrounded by the political and economic giant of theU.S. may have mattered in the past—and may continue to matter where the immediatecosts are not too high—but the increased interlocking of economic fortunes generatedby NAFTA progressively downgrades such matters and displaces the once symboli-cally significant exercise of autonomy and independence in foreign policy that charac-terized traditional Canadian and Mexican relations with Cuba.

Yet resistance to U.S. hegemonic hemispheric designs—whether symbolic or prac-tical, opportunistic or committed, successful or otherwise—has not been confined toits partners in NAFTA. If anything, Nicol argues, it has been more conspicuous amongstthe smaller states of the Caribbean and Central Latin America that are less economi-cally integrated with the U.S. and at some distance from it geopolitically. Thus Nicoldescribes how the alternative autonomous institutions constructed by Caribbean states—notably the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) formed in 1973, and the Associationof Caribbean States (ACS) founded in 1994—have consistently resisted the adoptionof U.S.-inspired policies aimed at isolating and undermining Cuba. Though they them-selves have largely constructed their regional economic relationships according to neo-liberal principles, Nicol suggests that this was less a matter of succumbing to U.S. pres-sure to adopt neo-liberal developmental precepts and more a matter of Caribbean statesclubbing together in order to plot their own collective economic and developmentalpathway independently of direct U.S. guidance and outside of the structures of NAFTA.

Nicol concludes her examination of the place of Cuba in the geopolitical imagi-nary of North American and Caribbean states by noting how growing Caribbean re-gionalism has itself become an object of U.S. policy in the form of U.S. discourse onthe “Third Border.” This refers to the notion of the Caribbean as a regional entity withits own (regional and geopolitical) borders with the U.S. that are distinct from classicalnational-state borders. In this way, and in conjunction with the remaking of “internal”and “external” borders within and between NAFTA states, Nicol suggests that the pro-cess of geopolitical and geo-economic regionalization raises questions of its own con-cerning the nature and form of borders and boundaries between geopolitical entities—not least how these impact upon and transform the conventional borders of nationalstates.

European Integration and the Remaking of ‘Internal’ and ‘External’Borders

The processes, policies, and transformations examined by both Nicol and Acklesonand Kastner in the context of the northern and central Americas are far from unique andhave their counterparts in other regions of the world—not least on the eastern side of

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the North Atlantic. Here, however, regionalization, interstate cooperation, and processesof political and economic integration take place in the main under the auspices of thetransnational European Union (EU), rather than through the leadership of one majorstate. The EU, Europe, and the European “near abroad” consequently are examined inour third and fourth articles—with Bohdana Dimitrovova examining the EU’s Euro-pean Neighborhood Policy (ENP), and Ad Knotter focusing upon the internal bordersof the EU as these are conceived in its (internal) regional policy.

Like the U.S.-inspired Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)examined by Ackleson and Kastner, and comparable in some respects to the U.S.’s“Third Border” Initiative discussed by Nicol, the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP)emerged in response to perceived problems and threats faced by the EU at its (new)external borders. From being a 15 member union in 1995 comprised of the majority ofthe states of Western Europe, by 2004 the EU had expanded to include a further 10states from Central and Eastern Europe—with the accession of Romania and Bulgariain 2007 bringing its membership to 27 states—transforming its eastern (and some south-ern and northern) frontiers in the process. It was in this context of “enlargement” thatthe ENP first crystallized as a policy proposal in 2003 before emerging as full-devel-oped policy in 2004 that was rapidly enhanced and developed in the course of a fewyears. As a result, the ENP today boasts its own dedicated Commissioner (Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy)and possesses a budget of c. €€ 2 billion (approx. US$3 billion) per annum.

This new and far-reaching initiative provides the focus of Dimitrovova’s article“Re-making of Europe’s Borders through the European Neighborhood Policy.” Draw-ing upon an analysis of ENP documents and interviews with European Commissionofficials involved in its design and implementation, Dimitrovova examines the ENPwith a view to ascertaining to what extent it is engaged in reconfiguring the externalborders of the EU. In the course of this examination, Dimitrovova raises the questionsof what kinds of borders can be said to be emerging at the frontiers of the enlargedUnion and whether the construction of a “European Neighborhood” as envisaged inthe ENP constitutes a case of “re-bordering” the EU, or (perhaps) “transcending” con-ventional protocols regarding national-state borders that simultaneously function asthe borders of a geopolitical entity such as the European Union.

The evidence presented by Dimitrovova suggests that the new external borders ofthe EU in large part function as classical national-state borders. However, she alsosuggests that recognition of the role of EU member states in managing their borderswith those states belonging to the officially designated “European Neighborhood” isnot sufficient to adequately capture the nature of these borders nor the kind of transfor-mations taking place at the “edges” of the European Union. In particular, Dimitrovovaconsiders two alternative conceptualizations of borders that she suggests shed somelight upon the kinds of borders in the process of construction through the ENP, viz. thesuggestions that these borders are more akin to those belonging to imperial polities,and the increasingly fashionable notion of borders as “networks” of connections ratherthan lines of division and separation. In each case, Dimitrovova recognizes the appealand merit of these conceptualizations, but concludes that they too fail to recognize thecomplexity of the kind of re-bordering processes taking place around the EU—a com-plexity that in large part reflects the heterogeneity of the politico-territorial space groupedunder the designation of the “European Neighborhood.” To take just two illustrations,viz. Russia and Turkey. Each “technically” forms part of the EU’s “neighborhood”

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given their respective territorial contiguity with present EU boundaries, but Turkey isnot included in the European Neighborhood Area given that it is currently a candidatefor EU membership, while Russia is also excluded and is instead assigned a specialstatus as part of a customized relationship known as a “Strategic Partnership.” More-over, given that the states designated as part of the European Neighborhood includeterritories as distinctive and distant as Morocco, Israel, and Azerbaijan, it is perhapsunsurprising that Dimitrovova concludes that “no single model will adequately explainthe complexity of the current geopolitical situation” (See pp. 53-54).

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to conclude that there are no clear patterns evi-dent within the ENP as an instrument of “re-bordering.” For a start, the initiative is stillquite young, and its unfolding in practice may reveal commonalities even amongstsuch a diverse array of states—particularly as they progressively participate in its JointAction Plans and learn from each others experiences. But even still, as Dimitrovovashows, the ENP as currently constituted displays a strong focus upon security, trade,and the control of migration—a characteristic that makes it similar in important re-spects to the contemporaneous SPP initiative operating in North America. Thus not-withstanding the distinctive geopolitical situations of the U.S. and the EU, and despitesharply contrasting modus operandi—the more incremental and ad hoc approach ofthe U.S. compared with the more formalized and systematic approach of the EU—theprocesses of border transformation underway in each case may exhibit greater simi-larities than first impressions might suggest. Indeed, the ENP was originally launchedas an initiative whose leading terms were comparable to those of the SPP in NorthAmerica—viz. the “strengthening the prosperity, stability, and security of all concerned”(European Commission 2008)—although it was given a less prosaic designation throughthe use of the politically “cozy” concept of “neighborhood.” Such similarities—(asmuch as the important differences)—raise interesting questions in their own right, someof which are no doubt tied to the kinds of considerations that give grounds for consid-ering both the U.S. and EU to be “empire-like,” or at least as acting in ways reminiscentof imperial (or quasi-imperial) polities.

But if indeed each of the U.S. and EU exhibit some of the characteristics of impe-rial polities, in the case of the EU there is also scope for considering the reconstitutionof borders within the EU as well as at its exterior limits. Indeed, if one mark of anempire is the existence of differentiated borders within, without, and across the impe-rial entity, then the internal borders of an entity such as the European Union deserve asmuch scrutiny as its external ones. Accordingly our fourth article, “A Borderless Re-gion? (Nazi-)German Westforschung and the German-Dutch-Belgian Borderland” byAd Knotter, examines one such border, viz. the German-Dutch-Belgian border in theMeuse-Rhine area. Focussed squarely upon the contestation surrounding narratives ofa specific region recognized by the European Union as a constituent unit of “Europe ofthe Regions,” and concerned with the relationship between the production of such nar-ratives on the part of scholars and their appropriation and utilization by policy-makers,Knotter’s article refocuses our attention upon the cultural dimensions of borders andupon the role of narratives in shaping, informing, and legitimizing policies aimed atreconfiguring national-state borders.

Knotter approaches these issues through an historical case of study of the produc-tion of narrative on the part of professional historians. He examines the creation anddevelopment of a specific scientific-cultural program undertaken in Germany betweenthe 1930s and 1970s, in which an historical research program aimed at identifying the

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ethno-cultural specificities of a region of territory currently divided between the Ger-man, Dutch, and Belgian states came under intense scrutiny. Under the influence ofnew disciplinary developments in the humanities and social sciences—in particular therise of “ethno-” history and regional cultural studies—German scholars operating un-der the auspices of the Nazi regime during the 1930s promoted a conception of themulti-bordered Meuse-Rhine area as inherently “Germanic” despite its division amongstthree states and notwithstanding its multilingual complexity. The scholars in question—some of whom occupied political positions in the Nazifying German state—presentedtheir research as founded on scientific authority, yet Knotter argues that their work hadmore than an “elective affinity” with Nazi politics and ideology. Not only was theirresearch used to legitimize the expansionist designs of the German State under Nazirule, but Knotter argues that the foundational assumptions of the research programthey pursued was itself infused with ethno-nationalist conceptions of identity that hadmore than a passing resemblance to those of the Nazis.

Knotter narrates the story of how this research program of Kulturraumforschung(the study of “cultural regions”) emerged in the 1930s and was harnessed to Nazi plansfor redrawing the boundaries of the German state to coincide with the (scientificallyidentified) boundaries of ethnic “Germanity.” The crux of his argument is that the re-search conducted as part of this program was designed in such a way as to generate apolitically convenient historical narrative that claimed the true identity of the Meuse-Rhine area to be located in the distant past—thus effacing its contemporaneous com-plexity in the interests of a present-focussed political project. In particular, Knottersuggests that the program was infused with a kind of “ethnic essentialism” that positedprimordial ethno-cultural identities amongst certain groups—identities that were in noway impaired by centuries of history, nor negated by “artificial” processes of national-state formation and the construction of national economies. Instead, these “ancient”identities were considered as the “true” foundation for the construction of politicalrelationships and as providing the grounds for ignoring the existence of national-stateborders that came to divide the once unified ethno-cultural region against itself.

Knotter’s article therefore raises questions about the nature of the relationshipbetween scholarship and politics as this concerns the contested construction of politi-cally-salient identities—not least those that concern cross-border interactions. In par-ticular it is concerned with the ways in which “essentialist” research programs maylegitimize specific policies of border change, and Knotter provides some remarks oncontemporary forms of regional research within the European Union where such pro-grams are utilized in supporting EU conceptions of itself as a “Europe of the Regions.”Though confined to the case of Meuse-Rhine region—an area commonly consideredto be a “core” region of Europe—Knotter’s “genealogy” of a scientific-cultural pro-gram built around “essentialist” assumptions of identity, culture, history, and territory,demonstrates the ways in which narratives and discourses on borders, regions, andcultural identities relate to politics and policy. In addition, it raises pertinent questionsabout the ways such narratives and discourses are generated in, and transformed by,the political conditions in which they take shape and evolve—prompting us to reflectnot only upon the relationship of narratives to structures, but of the place and role ofthe social-scientific academy in the production of narratives, discourses, and scientificknowledge as it bears upon policy and politics more generally.

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10 Structures and Narratives of Border Change

Bordering State and Nation in Israel/Palestine

One of the key characteristics of stable polities in a world of national states is thecapacity to “forget” the circumstances under which their territorial borders were estab-lished in the first place. Thus it becomes possible to consign to the “past” the war,violence, and predatory acquisitions frequently associated with the demarcation ofpolitical borders—thereby encouraging popular acquiescence to, and even identifica-tion with, a fixed and bounded territorial unit. This process may be further institution-alized by the establishment of democratic governance, the rule of law, and a measure ofinternal cultural homogenization within an interstate system that bolsters the stabilityof its constituent polities via institutionalized recognition and rules of interaction. RassemKhamaisi’s article “From Imposed Ceasefire Line to International Border: The Issue ofthe Green Line between Palestine and Israel” therefore provides an account of theprolonged and conflictual process of border formation in Israel/Palestine. Covering theera of Mandatory Palestine to the present day, Khamaisi’s article points to chronicdifficulties in distinguishing between a violent past and a peaceful present—or indeedof producing a persuasive political narrative of how a settlement might be reached inthe future.

Although Khamaisi provides a detailed political history of the power relationshipsand antagonistic narratives specifically associated with the “Green Line,” his accountholds up a mirror to wider processes of border formation rooted in the history of Eu-rope and North America. These include the clash of retreating and expanding empires;the legacy of world war, partition, and ethnic cleansing; the raw and antagonistic pro-cess of border making in settler societies; and the intersection of civilizational andgeopolitical tensions in one of the most volatile regions in the world. While the stabilityof powerful polities often rests on their capacity to externalize violence beyond theirown borders—as for example in the proxy wars supported by the U.S. and the USSR inmany parts of Asia and Africa during the Cold War, or more recently, in the U.S.’ claimto be fighting a “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan—Israel/Palestine has longconstituted an arena for proxy wars between a variety of states and ethno-religiousgroups. More specifically, it has played a key role in the cultural and religious narra-tives of Europe (and its “others”) for almost two thousand years—reflected sharply inthe status of Jerusalem as an iconic global city for Muslims, Christians, and Jews evenat the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Israel/Palestine conflict thus providesdisturbing echoes of Europe’s (and North America’s) past, and if left unresolved, itmay yet be a portent of a more violent future.

Khamaisi’s article thus reveals just how deep-rooted are the obstacles to a durablepeace settlement in terms of the asymmetry of power relations among the protagonistsand the intimate struggles over land, housing, resources, demographics, and the arbi-trary imposition of boundaries. The military provenance of the “Green Line” as atemporary ceasefire line, its subsequent alteration, and the opposing narratives associ-ated with it, render it highly problematical as a stable and durable border between anIsraeli and embryonic Palestinian state. As Khamaisi argues, any possible settlementneeds to avoid reductionist “security” narratives and instead must address the manydimensions of border conflict—including the political/security aspects, economic de-velopment, and an accommodation of opposed cultural identities.

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Volume 23 • No. 1 • Spring 2008 Journal of Borderlands Studies 11

Conclusions

All the contributions to this issue reflect the multidimensional nature of borderchange at a variety of levels—transcontinental, national, and sub-state regional. Theyidentify a range of “border transcending” and “border confirming” processes as well asthe narratives that represent them in the economic, political, and cultural spheres. Andit seems clear that, however much stable territorial borders facilitate representativeforms of democracy, bordering practices themselves are seldom democratic. They typi-cally lack transparency and accountability and tend to remain the preserve of variouselites—political, administrative, military, cultural, and economic—who assume, or whoare charged with, the roles of demarcating, policing, and/or defending territorial bound-aries. Our understanding of borders, therefore, very much depends on the vantage pointfrom which we analyze them—whether it is from the perspective of those who imposeor manage them, or of those who challenge, circumvent, and contest them. Howeverwe locate ourselves, we cannot therefore avoid the interdisciplinary perspective thatinforms this Special Issue. The structures and narratives of contemporary border changestand at the intersection of four sources of power—political/administrative, economic,military, and cultural/ideological.

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