Borderlands

The term border, although still used as a synonym for boundary, implies interaction and passage between political regions (primarily states). Even though nearly all international boundaries regulate—if not restrict—the passage of people, goods, and communications, a boundary cannot erase the common concerns of bordering populations. Those areas whose populations are most strongly affected by boundaries are termed borderlands (or border regions). Borderlands exist because families, ethnic groups, businesses, and social networks straddling the boundary gain from overcoming political segregation.

The dimensions of borderlands are rarely defined because regions are determined by the degree of interaction and are therefore both in flux and indefinite. When governments specify a borderlands region, as the United States and Mexico did in the 1983 La Paz Agreement, it is for administrative purposes. Changes in migration across a border, expansion of trade opportunities, or development of communications networks can expand the cross-border social and economic networks, plus the extent of the borderland. The degree of cross-border interaction [Page 292]is not necessarily symmetric; for example, exchanges along the U.S./Canada borderlands are far more influential to Canada than to the United States.

A small fence separates the densely populated Tijuana, Mexico (right), from the United States in the Border Patrol's San Diego Sector.

Source: Sgt. 1st Class Gordon Hyde.

Many borderlands result from superimposition—international boundaries established without regard for local ethnic societies and consequently dividing them between states (e.g., the division of Africa by European states at the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885). In these cases, social and economic networks precede the boundaries, as in the case of the Hutus, Kurds, Basques, and numerous other ethnic societies. Often, these borderlands are seen as threats to state sovereignty as political loyalties remain to regional ethnic groups. (Not all ethnic borderlands are the result of superimposed boundaries; decades of migration across the southern border of the United States have also formed one.)

Other borderlands are generated by interactions between the societies of adjacent states. Globalization processes have increased the ease with which members of different states have been able to interact with each other; social networks have followed. Proximity also increases the likelihood of economic interaction since economies of scale and decreased transaction costs result from treating a borderland as a single unit. In addition, shared environments can generate shared concerns, generating cross-border collaboration. Along the Western United States/Canada border, the members of Cascadia (British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon) share economic, ecologic, and social concerns.

Not all boundaries accommodate a functioning borderland even where potential linkages exist. North Korea and South Korea share a common history, but political factors have overruled both ethnicity and economics. For most of the world, however, increasing interaction and collaboration will continue to develop existing borderlands as well as to generate more.