1

Christa Zeller Thomas

University of Ottawa Draft Paper

Borders, Boundaries, and Borderlands: Mapping Territory at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Knowledge-making is strange business. In order to partake in it, we must believe

that there is some validity to our understanding of the subject, otherwise we would

hardly dare, or want, to put forward our version of, or even speculation about, the

truth. It is sometimes tempting to become absorbed in our own truth-claims and

easy to forget that the production of knowledge, as all other forms of social activity,

is a highly political undertaking. For this reason, it is important to distinguish

between levels of analysis, to signal these distinctions as well as our parameters,

and to indicate clearly that we do not claim any superior or exclusive interpretative

position or authority. To signal my own recognition of these circumstances I will use

the personal voice in this text.

The power of discourse is its ability to exclude other kinds of discourse, on

epistemological or other grounds. And there is certainly danger in asserting,

accepting, taking for granted, and giving the impression that what is being spoken

about is the only subject worth discussing. Yet Holding the Line: Borders in a Global

World, a 2005 University of British Columbia Press (Vancouver, Toronto)

publication with contributions by 25 scholars and edited by Heather N. Nicol and

Ian Townsend-Gault, has fallen prey to precisely this danger. While it explores the

nature of contemporary borders from different perspectives (from economic and

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historical to environmental and geopolitical), what is strikingly missing, however, is

a women's perspective of lines of separation and demarcation, and an analysis of the

gendered dimensions of borders and boundaries. I find this omission, or exclusion,

astonishing, glaring and disappointing. In response, my feminist critique of Holding

the Line rests on three main arguments: First, the discourse employed in the book

should have been both broader and more specific. This is not a contradiction in

terms, as I will show, but would have helped to clarify for the reader exactly what

kinds of separation lines are being analyzed. Borders and boundaries are not limited

to geography, as anyone excluded from territory charted by the dominant discourse

will be able to tell, and Holding the Line itself thus represents bounded terrain.

Second, subsuming women's views of borders into the male standard presupposes

that the account by both genders is identical. This, of course, is not correct, as

women experience borders – even strictly territorial ones – quite differently than

men. Omitting such female accounts means that women's stories do not become

part of theorizing about the world. Third, it is impossible to talk about borders

without also discussing the concept and continued persistence of the nation-state.

Yet equally persistent is the symbolic use of women in the construction of

nationhood, nationalism, markers and boundaries. The opportunity to explore this

link, however, has also been missed.

Much has been written and said by analysts, the media, and the general public alike

about the increasing ‘borderlessness’ of the world, brought about by various aspects

of globalization. Information and communications technologies are collapsing time

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and space and make possible connections, both between individuals and

institutions, in locations at opposite sides of the globe. Knowledge and ideas are

transmitted as quickly and easily as goods are bought and sold and as capital is

moved from London to New York and Tokyo – largely unimpeded by state borders.

Nor are state limits observed by some of the less welcome phenomena of our time,

such as environmental pollution and terrorism. Traditional sovereignty is seen as

being eroded. But are these perceptions true? How permeable have borders truly

become? This is the question posed and analyzed in Holding the Line: Borders in a

Global World, which contains 19 contributions by 25 contributors, organized in eight

different parts, each of which "focusing on a specific issue, and each chapter

adopting a distinctive approach".1 There is also an introduction by the editors with a

brief general overview of the discussions to follow and introductory comments to

each of the individual parts, as well as a conclusion by Heather Nicol. The topics

explored deal with the opportunities and problems presented by the globalizing era,

with regionalism and subregionalism as new forms of governance, and with the

prospects for a borderless North America, among others. Also included are

reflections on borders as metaphors, on the inherent power and danger of maps,

and on the meaning of space.

Throughout the volume, Holding the Line is plagued by its fuzzy, and somewhat

confusing, use of language. The terms "borders", "boundaries", and "frontiers" are

1 Nicol, Heather, and Ian Towsend-Gault. (2005). "Introduction." Holding the Line: Borders in a Global

World. Heather N. Nicol and Ian Townsend-Gault, eds. University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver,

Toronto, p. 2, emphasis added.

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used interchangeably, thus blurring any lines of distinction in meaning between

them. The editors acknowledge that "borders are as much realities as they are

metaphors" while, however, in the same sentence describing them as "walls that

divide one nation from another"2. Could the metaphor, and indeed the discourse, not

have been extended beyond geopolitical to social, sociological, linguistic, ethnic, or

gender concerns? Which "borders", precisely, are being explored? In all fairness,

while much of the book is concerned with territorial dividing lines between

"sovereign" states, there are some attempts at broadening the discourse. We are

reminded, for example, of the "lack of social differentiation"3 in the borderless-

world narrative and that, as in the case of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)

currently being promoted and developed by Malaysia, which is mainly envisioned

for top-tier managers and knowledge workers, questions arise as to who will gain

access to its social space and who "will be held at the borders"4. Similarly, there is

talk of "parallel universes", one of which – representing the geopolitical world – is

characterized by increasing border permeability, while the other one shows "glaring

gender, race, and ethnic disparities"5. Unfortunately, this is only a passing mention.

One chapter also dives into a discussion of the nature and social construction

of space and spatiality, raises questions regarding the "authorship of space", and

looks at borders as "social representations that enforce a spatial code of [...]

2 Ibid. 3 Jackson, Steven. (2005). "Technopoles and Development in a 'Borderless' World: Boundaries Erased,

Boundaries Constructed." Ibid., p. 323. 4 Ibid., p. 322. 5 Brunn, Stanley D., et al. (2005). "Towards a Geopolitics of Life and Living: Where Boundaries Still

Matter." Ibid., p. 384.

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distances"6. But on the whole, Holding the Line does not sufficiently acknowledge

that all lines of demarcation are of our own making and that the book itself

represents bounded terrain in the form of specific scholarly research. Yet borders

and boundaries apply to disciplines and fields of study as much as they do to states,

and it is possible to exclude one group, such as women, from a field mapped by

another, more dominant, group. It is worth noting that of the 25 contributors to the

book only two are women and their contributions do not express a feminist, or

particularly female, viewpoint. Interestingly, it is some of the male writers who

make mention, albeit in passing, of gender inequalities in the context of borders (as

implicitly in the example given above).

The discipline of International Relations (IR), the broad territory into which Holding

the Line falls, has been charted by men and continues to show remarkable resistance

to feminist lines of study and questioning. In fact, it is fair to say that until recently,

"women were invisible in IR, as if either they were not there – as if the business of IR

is, literally, men's business, or as if men and women were affected in the same ways

and played the same kind of roles in IR."7 Research in IR has been focused on the

interactions between states, a unit of analysis to which more recently can be added

international, or global, market relations. Holding the Line reflects both of these foci.

(Some inroads are made by environmental concerns, as explored in the book in the

context of the Cascadia region – shared by British Columbia, Washington State, and

6 Coleman, Matthew. (2005). "Permeable Borders and Boundaries in a Globalizing World: Feeling at Home

Amidst Global Poverty." Ibid., pp. 296 – 297. 7 Pettman, Jindy Jane. (1995). "Worlding Women". AntePodium electronic journal, 4/95.

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Oregon – but all too often, between these "incompatible visions", economic drivers,

particularly, prevail.8)

Women, at any rate, have been excluded from the field of IR and thus have

been denied access to authorized knowledge-production, a fact which is also

reflected in Holding the Line. These boundaries are being contested now by feminist

scholars such as Cynthia Enloe and Ann Tickner, opening the prospect of

penetrating into and "remapping" the terrain of IR. In the context of border

permeability, Holding the Line does warn the reader of the power inherent in maps

of the world. They are dangerous and "misleading" because "[t]hey give an

impression of stability [...]"9. One might add that map-making, as well as attendant

tasks such as surveying, charting, compiling, drafting, and selecting, have been

firmly in the realm of male activity. Sadly, the book does not live up to the rich

potential presented by the topic to challenge these boundaries.

Many of the contributors to Holding the Line agree that regionalism and

subregionalism offer promising prospects for future governance. Transnational

border cooperation, or "regional anchoring", as in the European construct of

"Euroregions", are seen as "enlightened"10. Similar examples of transboundary

cooperation are also explored in the North American context for the cross-border

region of Cascadia (mentioned above), and the San Diego – Tijuana border area, as

8 Alper, Donald K. (2005). "Conflicting Transborder Visions and Agendas: Economic and Environmental

Cascadians." Holding the Line: Borders in a Global World. Heather N. Nicol and Ian Townsend-Gault, eds.

University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver, Toronto, pp. 222 – 237. 9 Blake, Gerald. (2005). "Boundary Permeability in Perspective". Ibid., p. 15. 10 Scott, James Wesley. (2005). "Transnational Regionalism, Strategic Geopolitics, and European

Integration: The Case of the Baltic Sea Region." Ibid., pp. 97 – 98.

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well as for regional Caribbean integration. (One contributor even suggests, rather

bravely, that the European integration model may be applied successfully to

postcolonial Africa, despite the prevalent perception that Africa's border

arrangements, drawn by imperial European powers, are particularly arbitrary and

thus disruptive and artificial.) The term "borderlands" is used frequently, "to refer

to the distinctive regions that form along the boundaries of nation-states. [...T]hey

provide the conduit and infrastructure that supports interaction between states."11

Cross-border regions are hailed for their entrepreneurship and economic

competitiveness, despite, as in the San Diego – Tijuana border area, "constraints"

resulting from "socioeconomic disparities"12.

However, such repeated use of the term "borderlands" endows the word not

only with reproductive capacity but also with authority and positive value which

does not take account of levels of analysis or the "mutual gaze" experienced, in all

likelihood, quite differently from the two facing sides of the border. For instance,

while US border patrol views the Tijuana area as a "war zone"13, mainly because of

problems with what the US perceives as illegal immigration, for the Mexicans drawn

to the border, "the other side" represents opportunities and better jobs. There is

also the attitude by Americans that "whatever happens on the other side is of no

concern to [them], no matter how bad the problem."14

11 Turbeville, Daniel E. III, and Susan L. Bradbury. (2005). "NAFTA and Transportation Corridor

Improvement in Western North America: Restructuring for the Twenty-First Century." Ibid., p. 268. 12 Cohn, Theodore H. (2005). "Transportation and Competitiveness in North America: The Cascadia and

San Diego-Tijuana Border Regions." Ibid., p. 214. 13 Ibid., p. 215. 14 Arriola, Elvia. (2000). Voices from the Barbed Wire of Despair, Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina

Critical Theory and Gender at the U.S. Mexico Border. womenontheborder.org.

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It should come as no surprise that women experience borders and cross-

border regions less enthusiastically. For example, the organization Women on the

Border (WOB) which "seeks to advance the education, training and empowerment

of individuals who are employed in the more than 4,000+ U.S.-owned multinational

corporations known as 'maquiladoras' that are physically located on foreign soil at

the U.S.-Mexico border"15, reports that the "mostly women and children" employed

in the sweatshops work in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. This, most definitely, is

the perception of the women themselves: "Borders are set up to define the places

that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. [...] A borderland is a vague

and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural

boundary."16 In many of the maquiladores (assembly plants) that operate along the

US – Mexico border women are the preferred employee because of the deftness of

small hands required for much of the assembly labour. In addition, wages are

gendered and particularly low for women. Stories of abuse abound, including the

story of one woman who miscarried on the worksite because of unsafe working

conditions.17

Nor are women's border experiences limited to North America: cross-border

prostitution is flourishing along the German – Czech border18, the border between

Thailand and Cambodia19, and in Turkey's Russian markets20. The Gendered

15 womenontheborder.org 16 Anzaldua, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera. womenontheborder.org. 17 Arriola, Elvia. (2000). Voices from the Barbed Wire of Despair, Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina

Critical Theory and Gender at the U.S. Mexico Border. womenontheborder.org. 18 womensnews.com 19 uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/cambodia.htm 20 uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/turkey.htm

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Borders Conference21, held in Amsterdam in 2004, also considered issues pertaining

to migrant women, trafficking, and transnational labour issues, immigration law as

gendered violence and questions pertaining to the gender bias of national and

international jurisdiction. Disappointingly, Holding the Line misses the opportunity

to explore any of these issues and thus writes out of its account of borders the

commodification of women's bodies and their work.

My final argument concerns the construction of the nation-state, its relevance for

the erection and maintenance of borders, and women's symbolic use in both.

Holding the Line discusses the "formal beginning" of the modern state system with

the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and notes that "the drawing of state boundaries

had the effect of creating national consciousness through exclusion."22 It also

ponders the question, "[w]hat does it mean to be a 'state', or a 'nation' – or a 'nation-

state'"23, and notes that there is "not much evidence anywhere" that states

"recognize the phenomenon of withering borders".24 Indeed, it notes that in some

parts of the world, such as South America where the state-centric

realist/geopolitical approach has been particularly embraced, states pursue

aggressive "Darwinian" policies aimed at expanding their control and territories.25

Furthermore, "[s]tates still define the rights, freedoms, and opportunities for those

21 www.rechten.vu.nl/dbfilestream.asp?id=1556 22 Blake, Gerald. (2005). "Boundary Permeability in Perspective". Holding the Line: Borders in a Global

World. Heather N. Nicol and Ian Townsend-Gault, eds. University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver,

Toronto, p. 20. 23 Edwards, Thomas M. (2005). "Information Geopolitics: Blurring the Lines of Sovereignty." Ibid., p. 30. 24 Blake, Gerald. (2005). "Boundary Permeability in Perspective". Ibid., p. 21. 25 Bradshaw, Roy. (2005). "Redefining the Nature and Function of Boundaries: A South American

Perspective." Ibid., p. 186.

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within their spaces."26 Yet none of what Holding the Line has to say on this subject is

particularly new or enlightening.

This shortcoming might have been remedied to some extent had the book engaged

in a gender-sensitive analysis of the "mechanism of nation and state building"27

which, inevitably, is also an analysis of the mechanism of patriarchy. For example,

an exploration of the power relationships involved in the construction of state and

nation would have revealed the gendered language of nationhood and nationalism.

In many languages, the state is gendered male, such as in French l'état, or in German

der Staat, while the nation is female, as in la nation and die Nation, respectively.

(This grammatical distinction is lost in gender-neutral English). Related

terminology, such as "motherland", "home", and "kin", is emotionally charged and

evokes images of family bonds – in contrast to the term "fatherland", for example,

which conjures up images of realist power, government, and military.

Women's bodies serve as symbols for the fecundity of the nation and as

vessels for its reproduction. As such, they are also territorial markers because they

are the reproducers of the nation's offspring.28 Not surprisingly, then, "the nation is

frequently represented as a woman under threat of penetration or domination."29 In

the case of imperialism, the nation can become a beautiful woman stolen by

foreigners; in the case of invasion, the nation is cast as "raped", as in "the rape of

26 Brunn, Stanley D., et al. (2005). "Towards a Geopolitics of Life and Living: Where Boundaries Still

Matter." Ibid., p. 389. 27 Ivekovich, Rada, and Julie Mostov, eds. (2004). From Gender to Nation. Zubaan. New Dehli. 28 This line of argument is indebted to From Gender to Nation and to Jindy Jane Pettman's reflections on

women, gender and the nation. 29 Pettman, Jindy Jane. (1995). "Worlding Women". AntePodium electronic journal, 4/95.

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Kuwait". Similarly, women are particularly vulnerable to violence in war and

nationalist conflicts, and rape becomes a weapon in both, as seen, for example, in

recent history in the former Yugoslavia.

Yet the contribution in Holding the Line that deals with border issues and

humanitarian interventions refers to "actrocity sites"30 in a general way without any

specific mention of the victimization of women in this context. By penetrating

women's bodily boundaries, and forcing them to carry the "others'" offspring, the

nation's boundaries are also transgressed. In complex power politics involving

actual women's bodies, seen as being in need of protection, and nationalist

discourse which makes symbolic use of women's bodies, boundary defence merges

with the control of women's selves and bodies.

Women thus "become the subjected territory across which the boundaries of

nationhood are marked."31 Just how persistent the symbolic use of women in this

way is becomes clear when one examines contemporary fundamentalist states and

regimes that see women's roles as central to their politics and enforce, for example,

women wearing veils. Such gendered representations and patriarchal hierarchies

reveal how nation-states construct their identities. They also show that any eroding

of borders requires the dismantling of patriachy. An exploration of "body politics" of

this kind would thus have been useful.

30 Wood, William B. (2005). "Complex Emergency Response Planning and Coordination: Potential GIS

Applications." Holding the Line: Borders in a Global World. Heather N. Nicol and Ian Townsend-Gault,

eds. University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver, Toronto, p. 335. 31 Editorial, Gender & History, (1993), p. 159.

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Holding the Line recognizes that borders and boundaries are more than "physical

lines of separation.” The acknowledgement that borders are "both open and closed –

that they are both continua and fences"32 is welcome, as is the assertion that

boundary studies must deal with "the process through which society is bounded and

rebounded."33 The focus on the periphery, as it were, on the borders and margins,

and away from the centre, allows fresh views and offers a unique opportunity to re-

chart space previously mapped and, perhaps, considered stable. The editors of

Holding the Line express their hope that the book will contribute to the field of

boundary studies by responding to the call to search for a conceptual and

methodological framework. Yet the "holistic" approach promised the reader is, in

fact, not delivered because female accounts of borders and boundaries have been

omitted. It is, of course, understood that no one treatment of any given subject can

deal with all of its aspects, but even one chapter on women's issues in the context of

border studies would have helped to balance the privileged account which has been

produced. Sadly, though, women's stories are once again relegated to the

"exclusions and silences" of the terrain.

References

Anzaldua, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera. womenontheborder.org. Arriola, Elvia. (2000). Voices from the Barbed Wire of Despair, Women in the Maquiladoras, Latina Critical Theory and Gender at the U.S. Mexico Border. womenontheborder.org.

32 Nicol, Heather, and Ian Towsend-Gault. (2005). "Introduction." Holding the Line: Borders in a Global

World. Heather N. Nicol and Ian Townsend-Gault, eds. University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver,

Toronto, p. 2. 33 Newman, David. (2005). "From the International to the Local in the Study and Representation of

Boundaries: Theoretical and Methodological Comments." Ibid., p. 406.

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Editorial, Gender & History, (1993). Ivekovich, Rada, and Julie Mostov, eds. (2004). From Gender to Nation. Zubaan. New Dehli. Nicol, Heather, and Ian Towsend-Gault, eds. (2005). Holding the Line: Borders in a Global World. University of British Columbia Press. Vancouver, Toronto. Pettman, Jindy Jane. (1995). "Worlding Women". AntePodium electronic journal, 4/95. www.rechten.vu.nl/dbfilestream.asp?id=1556 www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/cambodia.htm www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/turkey.htm www.womenontheborder.org. www.womensnews.com