Borderlands

Definitions and Concepts

Borders may first of all be seen as barriers to integration: A person or an organization that has involvement across a border is internationalizing, which has legal and often economic implications because of different legislative and financial systems in use in the political states separated by the border. The crossing of a border may, however, also imply a confrontation between regional, ethnic, or national identities. Such a confrontation is often expressed in terms of “us versus them” and often leads to biased perceptions of reality. Borders, then, may be seen as cultural and mental thresholds. Consequently, inhabitants of borderlands may feel marginalized by people of either or both political entities adjacent to their common border.

Conceptually, borderlands are usually considered as culturally, politically, or economically peripheral. Depending on geographic locale and historical patterns of interaction of the peoples occupying border regions, inhabitants may or may not have a desire to integrate their regions with those more centrally located. They may also be concerned about transforming border regions to mitigate feelings of marginalization and alienation.

A desire to be more fully integrated with the political or cultural entity from which they are separated by a border, however, is not necessarily the primary motivator of occupants of borderlands. Rather, occupants of these border regions may confine themselves, or be confined, to a ghetto. In locations such as Sudan and Nigeria, in Africa, and the region of Israel and its Arab neighbors, occupants of borderlands explicitly desire to segregate either themselves or the occupants of regions (their opponents) on the other side of their arbitrary borders.

Disputed Issues

Another potential concern for nation-states with borderlands has to do with environmental issues. In the sister cities all along the U.S.-Mexico border, for example, smog is causing mercury poisoning, asthma symptoms, cardiac problems, and premature death. Pollution is contributing to global climate change and erosion of quality of life.

[Page 191]Whether borderlands are on land or at sea, their political control is typically in dispute. This dispute may have to do with commercial interests as well as with issues of national or ethnic sovereignty. Corporations engaged in primary industries, that is, the extraction of natural resources from the environment, frequently have a large stake in the demarcation, delimitation, and management of borderlands. Thus, matters affecting borderlands may be hotly contested. This concern regarding the disposition of borderland disputes relates particularly to globalization and the endeavors of multinational corporations (MNCs), whose interests lie in the maximization of profit with a minimum of government intervention. In any case, governments must necessarily become involved to protect the interests of their individual and corporate citizens.

The pecuniary interests of corporations as well as individuals are shared by governments because of the promise of tax revenues, the provision of employment, and quality-of-life factors that contribute to the welfare of people and nation-states. Naturally, ownership and control of borderlands become matters of vital concern to sovereign governments, and governments seek to maximize both their territorial prerogatives and their international influence in borderland disputes.

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