Critical Border Studies

<p>This edited collection formalises Critical Border Studies (CBS) as a distinctive approach within the interdisciplinary border studies literature. Although CBS represents a heterogeneous assemblage of thought the hallmark of the approach is a basic dissatisfaction with the ‘Line in the Sand’ metaphor as an unexamined starting point for the study of borders. A headline feature of each contribution gathered here is a concerted effort to decentre the border. By ‘decentring’ we mean an effort to problematise the border not as taken-for-granted entity but precisely as a site of investigation. On this view the border is not something that straightforwardly presents itself in an unmediated way. It is never simply ‘present’ nor fully established nor obviously accessible. Rather it is manifold and in a constant state of becoming. Empirically contributors examine the changing nature of the border in a range of cases including: the Arctic Circle; German-Dutch borderlands; the India-Pakistan region; and the Mediterranean Sea. Theoretically chapters draw on a range of critical thinkers in support of a new paradigm for border research. The volume will be of particular interest to border studies scholars in anthropology human geography international relations and political science.</p><p><em>Critical Border Studies</em> was published as a special issue of <em>Geopolitics</em>.</p>