Towards a relational perspective on border regimes

This chapter critically appraises scholarship on border regimes. I separate out three strands of literature on the topic based on how space and time are conceived. Absolutist accounts of space situate the border as a measurable and controllable entity with border regimes regulating mobility in the interest of state sovereignty. Relativist accounts of space emphasise perspective and subjectivity. There are multiple senses of what constitutes borders, and how actors imagine and act on them; border regimes encompass both productive and hostile connections between those actors. Relational accounts of space suggest that borders and regimes are outcomes of complex social relations. They argue that we should focus on these relations rather than on the regimes they produce. I suggest that we should forget borders. Borders are lenses to wider social forces, and reflect notions of how power, authority and community relate. If borders are expressions of wider processes, then the question becomes how these wider processes are reproduced and made durable over time.