While in the wake of the collapse of the USSR, many analysts predicted that the world had reached the "end of history"[Fukuyama, 1992] and that regional organizations and free trade agreements - including the European Union as a model to follow, as the most successful example of integration - were the sign of a world without borders, it is clear that more than thirty years later, reality is far from these comments. Instead, there has been a "return of borders"[Amilhat Szary, 2006],[Foucher, 2016],[Ferguson 2017]. One of the most telling signs is the increase in the number of "border walls" from 15 in 1989 to more than 60 in 2016[Vallet, 2016]. As a sign of a "rebordering" phenomenon[Van Houtoum, 2004],[Podescu, 2011], these walls are the manifestation of a "qualitative transformation" of borders[Ibid, 3]. However, their return takes different forms, whether it is in the form of concrete reinforcement, or in the form of increased control and surveillance activities, or even in the form of contestation by separatist movements, of which the referendums in Catalonia or Kurdistan are the most recent examples. What is new is that these processes attribute to borders a "sorting function of flows" leading to their "differentiated treatment"[Amilhat-Szary, 2015].
Whether contested, transgressed, transcended, strengthened or integrated, borders are therefore at the heart of the political debate. This symposium - the first in a series entitled "Borders, Spaces and Powers" - will focus on borders in a particular geographical era: the American continent. Because they were colonized by European powers, the Americas have in common that their borders were set up in order to "order" the New World[Popescu, 2011, 8]. More precisely, they combine in an original way two forms of territorial appropriation, a logic of colonizing zonal conquest (frontier) and a desire to mesh the world in a Western perspective of space (boundary)[Perrier Bruslé, 2007]. They therefore convey an exogenous dimension that can have implications for the spaces and communities they cross in terms of both legitimacy and identity. Beyond their colonial past, the Americas have had another thing in common since the 1990s: embracing the forces of globalization, they have put in place trade agreements, whether through NAFTA for North America or MERCOSUR for South America, to promote regional integration. And these agreements have highlighted a particular vision of the border, a border that appears more as a "resource" and less as a "stigma" (Amilhat-Szary, 2015, 85). At the local level, the actors sometimes have a different point of view on the development of the "peripheral" territories where they live and develop innovative para-diplomatic initiatives. On a continent, some of whose regions have been marked by recurrent border conflicts since the 19th century and some of whose borders are still disputed, particularly in Central America,[Medina, 2009, 36-37], integration has been a "stabilizing factor"[Medina, 2009, 41] without erasing internal geopolitical tensions that sometimes extend beyond the border, threatening continental stability.
However, the attacks of 11 September 2001 - and more generally the emergence of an international terrorist threat, present in Latin America since the Buenos Aires attacks in the 1880s - have changed the role of borders, contributing to their "refunctionalisation". The resurgence of a Fortress America[Alden, 2008],[Andreas, 2003],[Noble, 2004] has been very well documented for the United States, but the phenomenon of rebordering also concerns Latin American borders in a more ambivalent way, however, since they are caught in a contradictory process of "dismantling and construction"[Machado De Olivera, 2009, 19]. While some seem to be closing, due to the response of some countries to terrorism, others, on the contrary, are moving in the opposite direction, particularly in Central America[Medina, 2009, 138]. On this continent, there is a policy of original reinterpretation of the main trends in border management at the global level, with, for example, the deployment of an unprecedented scale of Brazilian border security apparatus, without any real questioning of the growth in international trade flows, legal or illegal (smuggling, drug trafficking, etc.)[Dorfman et al, 2014],[Dorfman et al, 2017].
It is difficult to define a common dynamic at the borders of the American continent since their role varies from one country to another, or even from one region to another[Machado Oliveira, 2009, 20]: the borders are marked, on the contrary, by an "immense variety", particularly in Latin America where they are more numerous. Between the "distant borders" that separate marginal regions whose territories "turn their backs on the border" (Argentina/Chile, Paraguay/Brazil...), the "capricious borders", marked by illegal cross-border links, especially in newly urbanized areas (Costa Rica/Nicaragua, Mexico/Guatemala), or the "vibrant borders", which draw their dynamism from a dense population and numerous comparative advantages (Brazil/Uruguay, Peru/Ecuador, Mexico/United States), without forgetting the "protocol borders", which are regions instrumentalized by the central government in order to promote their "dynamization" or to fight against illegal trafficking according to a top-down approach (Chile/Argentina, Haiti/Dominican Republic), we see that the types of borders are numerous[Machado de Oliveira, 2009, 28-30]. Different degrees of cross-border cooperation are being established through them and this conference may be an opportunity to refine this typology. In a global context of the rise in border studies theory, it may be interesting to ask how a continental approach makes it possible to take stock of regional specificities, but also to contribute, in an original way, to this epistemological effort[Mezzadra, 2013],[Nail, 2016],[Parker et al, 2012],[Wastl-Walter, 2012].
This conference therefore aims to reflect on these different dynamics that drive the American borders, as well as the changes they have undergone in the last decade along several axes.
Papers may focus on the various policies put in place since the early 2000s, particularly in relation to this phenomenon of rebordering which is at stake on a global scale. How are countries managing their borders in this new context? Proposals may focus both on the arrangements themselves and on their implications for cross-border relations. Case studies or comparative approaches are welcome that attempt, in particular, beyond the regional syntheses already established, to link the two halves of the Americas... [Brunet-Jailly, 2007],[Konrad et al, 2008].
The proposals will also be able to analyse how American borders evolve, between openness and closure, "functionalization and defunctionalization"[Foucher, 1991],[Pradeau, 1994, 16-17] in order to study these dynamics on a small scale, at the level of the dyad that some countries form, or on a larger scale - regional or continental. We will focus in particular on the material aspects of such a dynamic, and on the way in which this process is territorialized. Historical approaches that renew the question of territorialized border conflict and multiply the scales of interpretation, proposing efforts to evolve contradictory national and nationalist narratives, will also be sought[Parodi Revoredo et al, 2014].
Communicators can also explore the issue of continental integration within NAFTA and MERCOSUR, but also at the level of the Americas as a whole (UNASUR). What is the status of these regional groups that presented themselves as models in the 1990s? How do the different member countries view their border relations within these frameworks? How do the two phenomena of integration and rebordering coexist? What are the resistance movements to these processes, how do they express themselves politically and on what scale(s)?
More broadly, communicators are invited to study border relations in order to see what cross-border cooperation issues are being addressed between countries, what kind of complementarity can be established on either side of an international line. On a small scale, how can this lead to urban pairs and cross-border regions? This will include political counter-initiatives, as there are many examples in the Americas of transnational social movements that both denounce and embrace borders. Comparative approaches will be welcome.
We will also look at the work of the border "from below"[Runford, 2014]: how do people in border regions interact with the international standards they encounter? Since the border is an "identity marker"[Piermay, 2005, 206], a questioning of the link between identity, territory and border is welcome. What interactions and identity(s) emerge from these cross-border links? How do individuals construct themselves in relation to the border? Have other "third nations"[Dear, 2013, 71], such as those along the Mexico-United States border, emerged? The question is all the more important in some parts of Central America where "the State preceded the nation"[Medina, 2009, 38]. From there, what role do borders play in "national cohesion"[Ibid]? What representations do border communities have in place? As one of the dimensions of the construction of border identities is linked to the pre-Columbian history of the continent, the symposium will focus on the interpretation that indigenous peoples make of border construction[Nates Cruz, 2013].
Border crossings and their increasing human cost will also receive cross attention[De Leon et al, 2015]. This will involve both understanding intracontinental flows, linked to labour mobility in particular, but also the way in which the Americas are part of large-scale migration strategies, with increasing numbers of people trying to arrive in North America from Africa, for example, by crossing the Atlantic via the old slave route and then trying their luck on long and dangerous northbound routes. Emphasis will be placed on issues of vulnerability, with gender approaches welcomed[Tapia Ladino, 2014].
The illegal phenomena that have developed in the Americas can also be an interesting subject: whether it is drug trafficking, illegal immigration or cartels, etc. Their causes, their ramifications, their implications for local populations and the policies put in place to combat them are all angles that communicators are encouraged to address.
The question of maritime borders could also be addressed since their delimitation poses serious tensions, particularly in Central America[Medina, 2009, 40]. It also raises the question of the continent's external borders, particularly on the Arctic front (Nicol et al, 2009). It opens in a more generic way on the environmental dimension of border issues[Wadewitz 2012], which takes on a singular dimension in the Americas where, for the most part, international borders cross areas of low density human occupation.
Proposals on urban border issues are also welcome (Chevalier et al, 2004). Indeed, because they share the same experience of development linked to economic neo-liberalism, cities in the Americas have become border regions with both formal and informal borders established and monitored on behalf of higher socio-economic categories and other actors in "gentrification". This results in a phenomenon of "dispossession"[Harvey, 2008] that affects all American cities, from San Francisco to Sao Paolo, of which their traditional residents are victims. Communicators will be able to discuss this phenomenon and its modalities. How have these urban boundaries been imposed by governments and municipalities? How are they structured and manifested? How have traditional residents mobilized and what forms of political, social and cultural resistance have emerged?
Finally, since border areas are constantly evolving places whose aesthetic expression and imagination are rapidly recomposed[Rodney, 2017][Amilhat-Szary, 2014], we will focus on the interventions and performances that take place there, across the continent, and not only on the most publicized border sections.
Although focused on geography and geopolitics, this symposium is primarily transdisciplinary and all approaches are welcome, whether they relate to geography, history, political science, international relations, sociology, anthropology. Communicators are also encouraged to adopt multidisciplinary methodologies.
Location: Grenoble
Date: 11-13 June 2019
31 October 2018 (new date): Deadline for sending proposals to the following address: bordersinamericas.2019@gmail.com
Proposals (in English, French, or Spanish) will include an abstract of approximately 300 words and a short biographical note of 100 words.
