Week 2: Reading Journal

Michael Torres
Overview (69 words)

Michiel Baud & Willem van Schendel made a systematic effort to create a conceptual
framework for the comparative study of borderland. Baud studied at the University of Leiden
and van Schendel studied at the International Institute of Social History and Centre for Asian
Studies, Amsterdam. They go into social, political, identity, and other conceptual analysis points
that allow readers to view borders in a new light previously not seen.

Main Ideas (1,063 words)

A. Introduction (211-212)
 People will ignore borders whenever it suits them. In addition, they will also
exploit them when it benefits them.
 Need more people have the desire who understand borders and can build
relationships with opposing territories that are necessary to communication and
to handle urgent situations.
B. Borders and Borderlands: Some Concepts (213-216)
 academic discussions on borders are often confused because of a lack of
conceptual consensus—people confuse language for alternative meaning (ex.
frontier, boundary, and border)
 In 18th and 20th century, borders all over the world became crucial elements in a
new, increasingly global system of states.
 The mapping of borders tended to proceed in three stages: establishment,
demarcation, and control of the border. Conflicting territorial claims were not
met with negotiation, confrontation, or arbitration.
 Borderland: the region in one nation that is significantly affected by an
international border.
 Borders are both a fine line separating land, and an area in which people are
constantly collaboratively working together, building social networks and making
everyday accommodations.
C. States and Borderlands (216-221)
 Context discussing importance of border to inhabitants, and to what extent does
it become nonessential to the lives of the inhabitants.
D. Borderlands and Space (221-223)
 border heartland: next to the border and dominated by its existence. The social
networks are shaped directly by the border and people depend on it for their
survival. They have no option but to adapt continually to its inexplicable changes.
 intermediate borderland: the region that always feels the influence of the border
but in intensities varying from moderate to weak.
 outer borderland: only under certain circumstances feels the effects of having a
border.
 Map making in Latin American countries is the monopoly of the military.
  Borderland that take place on both sides of the border, are never shown on
maps
E. Borderlands and Time (223- 225)
 embryonic borderland: borders appear to have resulted by situations in which
two or more frontiers were too close in area, and sometimes clash with each
other, resulting in lines being drawn
BORDERLAND LIFE CYCLE
1. infant borderland- exists just after the border line has been drawn.
2. adolescent borderland- has now become an undeniable reality, but people still
remember a time before it existed.
3. adult borderland- firm reality and social networks have begun to work in
acceptance with the border.
4. declining borderland- border losing its political importance and cross-borders
begin to emerge.
5. defunct borderland- when a border is abolished and the physical barriers
between the two sides of the border are removed.
F. Borderland Overlapping Networks (225-)
 “triangle of power relations” between state, regional elite, and local people in
the borderland.
1. Politics
 Some borders are in mass with large long-lived international alliances, like the
United Nations and the European community
 Political leaders can get access to two state units if near a borderland
 There are three types of borderlands, all relating to the unrest and lash. Back at.
The power systems keeping the borders in place. These borderlands are referred
to as quiet, unruly, and rebellious. The variations of these three types of
borderlands can be different for the two states that share a border-- one is quiet
and one is rebellious (e.g., the Yugoslav [Kosovo]/Alba- nian borderland in the
1980s)
2. Economy
 The fluctuations in world market can influence the productive structure, change
agricultural technology, introduce new crops, lead to new industrial activities,
and so on.
 Examples like the Nigerian gasoline heist by neighboring Benin can impose strict
border controls, making trade virtually impossible and provoking smuggling.
 Smuggling is a typical border activity in which the political and the economic
come together. Whenever a state applies restrictions on cross-border trade, it
invites smuggling.
 Dominican Republic and Haiti: various money forms in the 1930s. Both nation’s
currency was unreliable and weak, US dollars and pesos began the currency that
allowed this cross border trading
3. Language, Ethnicity, and Culture
 Natural and Unnatural borders
  Borders are natural if they differ from phenotype (race), language, or cultural
factors. The “naturalness” of such borders, however, is usually more
apparent than real
 Borders where sides can be easily distinguishable by ways of life—where when
you cross the border, you are met with intense insecure life alterations.
 Some borders are more complicated and they have more policies or a symbol of
national unity that set them apart from neighboring countries.
 Sometimes a border cuts through an ethnically distinct population (The Baluchi’s:
Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan/ The Kurds: Turkey, Iraq, Iran/ Sami: Norway,
Sweden, Finland, Russia)
 distinction is sometimes useful between “old” and “new” transborder people
 Ethnic minorities have often used borders to escape discrimination or political
repression, thereby changing their social and political status and transforming
elements of their culture
G. Comparing Borderlands
 Africa has the youngest borderlands. And many of the borders have dense
undefined character and should call for more social and political relevance
 Asia and South America have interesting border historiography; borders and
borderlands have been studied chiefly as diplomatic and military battlegrounds.
 The Mexican–U.S. border has provoked an enormous literature and has received
quality attention and analysis
 Asia boasted strong and populous regional states that were able to engage in
large-scale military campaigns to settle any border conflicts.
 It was said in nineteenth-century Latin America that to govern was to populate,
gobernar es poblar.
 Spanish colonizers used the territorial boundaries of the Inca and Aztec empires
to organize their colonial jurisdictions in Spanish America.
 Went into heavy analysis on how the borders all has different historical
upbringings and how continental ruling on the formation of these borderlands
looked a little different based upon where you were from.
H. The Conclusion
 The study of borders and borderlands has been unduly restricted by an emphasis
on the geographical, legal, and political aspects of the creation and
consequences of borders. This has led to a state-centered approach
 We should ask which social and political impulses originated in borderlands and
what effect they had locally as well as beyond the borderland—particularly in
relation to state building on both sides of the border.
 Borders are not only about politics and economics, but social and cultural needs
 Borders divide people living on both sides, who may have had a long history of
cultural and social contact, but at the same time it unites them in the experience
of closeness to the border and (partial) dependence on it.

Quotes
People will have the ultimate mindset of survival, no matter how much emphasis a border
possesses.
“No matter how clearly borders are drawn on official maps, how many customs officials are
appointed, or how many watchtowers are built, people will ignore borders whenever it suits
them.” (211)

No border has ever just existed without commentary and force. Every person impacted by the
border in a large way wants a say in how the border is created.
“If there is one thing that has been central to all borders, it has been the contest about these
rules of inclusion and exclusion and the efforts of people to use, manipulate, or avoid the
resulting border restrictions.” (213-214)

Showing that borders create difference on each sides of them, but also have a communication
network at the mere existence of having a border present.
“Borders create political, social, and cultural distinctions, but simultaneously imply the
existence of (new) networks and systems of interaction across them. The existence of a border
is our point of departure, but at the same time we draw attention to the social networks that
reach across that border.” (216)

Borders are way more complicated than a google image search of US borders.
“This view of borderlands as changeable spatial units clashes with the visual representations of
borders that we find on maps. Most of the time, these maps are of limited use for
understanding the historical reality of borderlands because they are both too static and too
simple.” (222)

For illegal activities to happen, the societies on both sides must have an understanding for the
existence of the border.
“Even new cross-border networks, such as those involved in smuggling, are based on the
acceptance of the border.” (224)

Borders can go down silently, with raging fire, and. anything in between.
“The decline of a borderland can be a fairly peaceful process: the border gradually withers
away, losing its importance for both neighboring states as well as for the population of the
borderland. It may also be a violent process, if the decline is contested and certain groups in the
borderland try to stop it to protect their own interests.” (224)

In discussion of revolting the placement of a border:

“The rebellion, led by the regional elite, challenges state control over the borderland, ignores
the new border, and attempts to establish a regional counter-government.” (229)

Explaining how borders with different culture struggle having a life on the other side of the
border.
“Where people from the other side of a border can be recognized easily by their physical
appearance—clothing, language, or behavior—it is less easy for them to move back and forth
across the border, and their position on the opposite side is less secure.” (232)

Cross border communication is needed for a successful border to exist without constant
backlash.
“Cross- border (and often interethnic) networks of friendship, courtship, and kinship are as
much part of the border culture as cross-border economic and political partnerships.” (234)

European formation of borderlands:

“The study of borderlands in Europe deals with a long process of trial and error in which the
modern state developed more or less organically. Borders came to be generally accepted, and
when violence between states broke out, disagreement about the location of borders usually
was not the main cause.” (237)

Learning to understand the internal concepts of a border.

“To gain a better understanding of the historical dynamics of borderlands it is necessary to
address two issues: the triangular setup within border regions, which has often led to an
intense struggle for hegemony, and the interaction between the two sides of a given border.”
(241)

The odd nature of a border, but also why they exist in a conceptual analogy.
“This paradoxical character of borders can be considered a metaphor of the ambiguities of
nation building, which have recently provoked so much interest. This may be the strongest
argument for the study of the mental, cultural, or ethnic consequences of borders.” (242)

Opinion of Reading (179 words)

This reading was very broad with the number of borders and topics that were brought
to attention. I was a fan on how many examples they were able to fit in with their writing,
giving these words credibility in standing because of how many cultural lands they were able to
list factually. I was really able to look at borders not only geographically, but look at borders
from the cultural, mental, and economic reasonings that sometimes go unseen when looking at
a map. Understanding that borders exist everywhere, and they are all formed, controlled,
regulated, assembled, and maintained differently was very fascinating to learn. Traveling to
certain parts of the world are easier than others, and some areas will leave you unsafe due to
the ways in which the states on each side of the border communicate with one another. This
class has really helped me see how much of a broad term “border” is. This article highlights that
metaphorical sense of the term, as well as the real-life consequences that exist due to the
border being there.