The Political Materialities of Borders: New Theoretical Directions

(Hardback)

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The political materialities of borders aims to bring questions of materiality to bear specifically on the study of borders. In doing this, the contributors have chosen an approach that does not presume the material aspect of borders but rather explores the ways in which any such materiality comes into being. Through ethnographic and philosophical explorations of the ontology of borders from the perspective of materiality, this volume seeks to throw light on the interaction between the materiality of state borders and the non-material aspects of state-making. This enables, it is shown, a new understanding of borders as productive of the politics of materiality, on which both the state project rests, including in its multifarious forms in the post-nation-state era. -- .

Reviews

'They argue that borders are mediations between the material and the ideological, or the non-material more generally. They are created, recreated, and brought to life from the interconnectedness of state as a material project and state as an abstraction. [...] Olga Demetriou and Rozita Dimova argue that the materiality of borders is a consolidation and reproduction of political ideology; as ideologies shift and change, so do borders. There are material conditions, physical topographies, and social relations prior to a border, or a particular instantiation of a border, and they change as new forms of subjectivities are brought about by the border-work.'
Ville Laakkonen, Suomen Antropologi, Vol. 44, No. 2

Author Bio

Olga Demetriou is Associate Professor in Post-Conflict Reconstruction and State-Building at the Durham Global Security Institute at Durham University

Rozita Dimova is a Cultural Anthropologist and Associate Professor at the Department of Language and Cultures, Slavonic and East European Studies, Ghent University