Debating and Defining Borders: Philosophical and Theoretical Perspectives(Routledge Borderlands Studies)

This book brings together insights from border scholars and philosophers to ask how we are to define and understand concepts of borders today. Borders have a defining role in contemporary societies. Take, for example, the 2016 US election　and UK Brexit referendum, and subsequent debate, where the rhetoric and symbolism of border controls proved fundamental to the outcomes. However, borders are also becoming ever more multifaceted and complex, representing intersections of political, economical, social, and cultural interests.

For some, borders are tangible, situated in time and place; for others, the nature of borders can be abstracted and discussed in general terms. By discussing borders philosophically and theoretically, this edited collection tackles head on the most defining and challenging questions within the field of border studies regarding the definition of its very object of study. Part one of the book consists of theoretical contributions from border scholars, part two takes a philosophical approach, and part three brings together chapters where philosophy and border studies are directly related.

Borders intersect with the key issues of our time, from migration, climate change vulnerability, terror, globalization, inequality, and nationalism, to intertwining questions of culture, identity, ideology, and religion. This book will be of interest to those studying in these fields, and most especially to researchers of border studies and philosophy.

Foreword Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson

Introduction: Thinking Theoretically and Philosophically about the Concept of the Border Anthony Cooper and Søren Tinning

Part I Border studies

1. How Do We Theorise Borders and Why Should We Do It? Some Theoretical and Methodological Challenges Anthony Cooper

2. Borders and Boundaries? Reflections on Conceptual Distinctions of Borders in Sociological Theory Magnus Ring

3. Borderwork and its Contraries: Boundary-making and the re-imagining of borders Noel Parker

4. Dwelling Space versus Geopolitical Space: Reexamining Border Studies in Light of the "Crisis of Borders" John Agnew

5. Outflanking the Border Wall at La Frontera Edward Casey

Part II Philosophy

6. The Bounds of Hospitality Nicholas Davey

7. Emplaced at the Thresholds of Life: Toward a Phenomenological An-Archeology of Borders and Human Bounding Rasmus Dyring

8. Homeland and Politics of Space Jésus Adrían Escudero

9. Translating as Bordering: An Encounter with the Foreign Saša Hrnjez

10. Limit and Threshold: Knowledge and Ethics in the Making Dorthe Jørgensen

11. One Small Step: Onto-politics of the Limit as Ontology of the Possible Transformation Gaetano Chiurazzi

Part III Border Studies and Philosophy

12. Bridging Border Studies and Philosophy: The Border and the Limit Søren Tinning

13. The Janusface of the Monad versus the Nomad; an essay on the philosophy of B/ordering and Othering Henk van Houtum

14. Moving Borders Thomas Nail

15. Walled Borders: Beyond the Barriers of Immunity of the Nation-States Caterina Resta

16. Beyond Borders: Autoimmune Practices in a State of Law (an aporia) Roxana Rodríguez Ortiz

17. Threshold Experience and the Delineation of Boundaries Bernhard Waldenfels

Conclusion Anthony Cooper and Søren Tinning