Studying International Borders in Geography and Anthropology: Paradigmatic and Conceptual Relations

Duška Kneževič Hočevar

doi:10.3986/AGS40003

Authors

Duška Kneževič Hočevar https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3472-6005

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3986/AGS40003

Keywords:

border, boundary, boundaries, frontier, border line, border landscape, borderland, cultural landscape, anthropological concepts of boundaries, international borders, geographical concepts of boundary

Abstract

The article presents both classical and current dealings with boundaries and border areas in political geography. It is suggested that these conceptual usages are a suitable starting point in considerations of anthropological concept of boundary. The latter has been decisive in shaping the organisation of perspective on identity and belonging in anthropology since the publishing of Fredrik Barth's seminal Introduction to his 1969 edited volume. While there are nuances in understanding of the terminology in the two disciplines that they share (e. g. frontier, boundary, border), the geographical conceptual apparatus offers accents and anticipations characteristic of anthropological concept of boundary. The shared terminology can be said to have relatively wider implications in geography than in anthropology, much more so than many anthropologists of today are ready to acknowledge: it is argued that it is at least the geographical concept of borderland that must be credited with the notion of a dynamic boundary area: it is the notion that is built into the very base of the anthropological concept of boundary.

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References

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