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Toward a Critical Geography of the Border: Engaging

the Dialectic of Practice and MeaningHarald Bauder

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aDepartment of Geography, Ryerson University

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Toward a Critical Geography of the Border:Engaging the Dialectic of Practice and Meaning

Harald Bauder

Department of Geography, Ryerson University

Recent scholarship has pointed out the multidimensional character of national borders and the implausibility

of the border as a single and coherent concept. In this article, I build on this scholarship as I discuss howgeographers can critically engage in the dialectic of the border concept. To develop this argument, I reviewsome of the existing literature on the concept of the border and cross-border migration and suggest that variousmaterial practices and meanings related to borders can be conceived of as “aspects” of the border concept. I arguethat the impossibility of integrating these aspects into a coherent concept constitutes an important momentin the dialectic of the border. Critical geographers have an opportunity to engage with this border dialectic byoffering meanings of borders that enable new possible border practices. I advocate a democratic aspect of theborder concept decoupled from the state and implemented through a multitude of possible practices. I recognizethat the consequences of such scholarly engagement in the border dialectic are not entirely foreseeable andtherefore require continual reflection. Key Words: aspect-seeing, borders, critical geography, dialectics, migration.

La erudicion reciente destaca el caracter multidimensional de las fronteras nacionales y la poca plausibilidadde la frontera como concepto simple y coherente. En este art ıculo elaboro a partir de este punto de vista a

medida que discuto sobre la manera como los geografos pueden comprometerse crıticamente en la dialectica delconcepto de frontera. Para desarrollar este argumento, reviso alguna de la literatura existente sobre el conceptode frontera y sobre la migracion transfronteriza, y sugiero que varias de las practicas materiales y significadosrelacionados con fronteras pueden concebirse como “aspectos” del concepto generico de frontera. Arguyo quela imposibilidad de integrar estos aspectos en un concepto coherente constituye un momento importante en ladialectica de la frontera. Los geografos crıticos tienen una oportunidad de comprometerse con esta dialecticade frontera proponiendo significados de las fronteras que activen nuevas practicas posibles en los lımites. Yopropugno por un aspecto democratico del concepto de frontera, desligado del Estado e implementado a trav es deuna mirıada de posibles practicas. Reconozco que las consecuencias de tal compromiso academico en la dialectica

de frontera no son del todo previsibles y por tanto demandan reflexi on continua. Palabras clave: vislumbrandoaspectos, fronteras, geograf ıa cr ıtica, dial´ ectica, migraci´ on.

The border is a key geographical concept that

has also been at the center of the politics of mobility, identity, and economy (Balibar 2002,

2004). The recent academic literature has noted themultidimensional character of borders (e.g., Newmanand Paasi 1998; Wilson and Donnan 1998; Yuval-Davisand Stoetzler 2002; Ganster and Lorey 2005; Nicoland Minghi 2005; Nicol and Townsend-Gault 2005;

van Houtum, Kramsch, and Zierhofer 2005; Newman

2006a, 2006b; Rumford 2006; Shields 2006; Rumford2008). In this article, I draw on this established lit-erature to discuss how multiple meanings of the bor-der are implicated in different material practices. Ithereby follow a geographical tradition of recogniz-ing that social practices produce meanings of space,territory, and boundaries (e.g., Lefebvre 1991; Werlen

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(5) 2011, pp. 1126–1139 C 2011 by Association of American GeographersInitial submission, August 2008; revised submissions, January and July 2009; final acceptance, January 2010

Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.



Toward a Critical Geography of the Border 1127

1999). In addition, I build on the established literatureto investigate how the scholarly production of meaningcan inspire new possible practices.

The academic literature indicates that the conceptof the border follows a “dialectical movement.” I bor-row this term from Georg W. F. Hegel ([1807] 2005) todescribe the instability and continual rethinking of theborder concept on the basis of contradictory viewpointsand practices related to borders. Recent scholarship hasdemonstrated, in particular, the impossibility of inte-grating the various meanings of the border into a singleand coherent concept. Ludwig Wittgenstein used theterm aspect-seeing to describe how a single object canbe perceived in various ways. The aim of this article isnot only to illuminate aspect-seeing related to the bor-der and examine the dialectical movement of the bor-der concept but also to explore ways in which criticalscholarship can engage with this dialectical movement.

In other words, the conceptual diversity and multidi-mensionality of the border concept in academic schol-arship enables scholars to articulate fresh meanings of the border and potentially to shape related material bor-der practices. As an illustration, I investigate the visionof a democratic border and explore the contradictionsraised by this vision.

As conceptual entry points, I draw on Wittgenstein’slater work, as well as Hegelian and Marxian dialec-tics, to theorize the formation of the border concept.Given the substantial differences between Hegel’s ide-alism and Wittgenstein’s emphasis on practice and con-

text, the two philosophers make unlikely bedfellows(Cook 1984); however, the treatment of contradictionas a productive moment is a common feature in thework of both men (Frenzel 1999/2000; Earle 2002) andalso central to my argument. To make the discussionmanageable, I am reducing the scope of this article tocontemporary constructions of meanings of the borderin academic scholarship and to practices related to hu-man migration. This focus enables me to situate thescholarly discussion of the concept of the border in amaterial context of migration practices.

The discussion of borders and migration that I offer

in this article also relates to a general politics for criti-cal geography.Somecritical geographers have suggestedthat thelink between theoryand practice canbe accom-plished through direct participation in activist struggles(e.g., Blomley 1994; Fuller and Kitchin 2004). Oth-ers have stressed the value of geographic scholarshipin providing empirical and theoretical insights (e.g.,Mitchell 2004, 2008; Bauder and Engel-Di Mauro 2008;see also Blomley 2008 for both sides of this argument).

An equally important aim, I think, is to insist that ge-ographical practices and imaginations of geographicalconcepts such as the border are not beyond the influ-ence of critical scholarship. The arguments I presentin this article therefore support critical scholarship thatpresents fresh imaginaries of geographical concepts thatenable new possible material practices. Although crit-ical geographers have examined how imaginative ge-ographies produce effects of injustice, exclusion, andviolence (e.g., Gregory 2004; Dittmer 2007), utopianimaginaries that anticipate critical practices have be-come rare in academic thought and have mostly dis-appeared from conventional politics (Kenny 2007). Insupport of the struggles of marginalized migrants, suchas the sans-papiers in France and elsewhere, Pierre Bour-dieu, in a conversation with Gunter Grass, argued that“intellectuals have an important responsibility . . . to re-store a sense of utopian possibility” (Grass and Bourdieu

2002, 66) that challenges the practices and visions ofthe dominant order. Assuming this responsibility, ge-ographers can present fresh imaginaries of the border asa guiding script for possible material practices.

In the section that follows, I review empirical andtheoretical literature on the concept of the border anddiscuss the multidimensional treatment of this concept.In the third section, I develop the idea of aspect-seeingand illustrate how various aspects link particular mate-rial practices and the imagination of the border. Thefourth section expands on the dialectic of the conceptof the border. Fifth, I outline possibilities for critical

engagement in this dialectic and propose a democraticvision of the border. Finally, I conclude by discussingthe opportunities and the need for continual reflectionarising from such engagement.

Approaching the Border

Contrary to past predictions that borders would be-come irrelevant in light of globalization (e.g., Ohmae1991, 1995), recent scholarship has continued to ex-amine how borders regulate flows of capital, movement

of information, and the mobility of people (e.g., Blake2005). Furthermore, border scholars widely acknowl-edge that there is no singular perspective of the border.Etienne Balibar (2002, 75) stated that “we cannot at-tribute to the border an essence” and that borders have a

polysemic nature: “they do not have the same meaningsfor everyone” (Balibar 2002, 81). Accordingly, bordershave been associated with variable practices and mean-ings. For example, they might be permeable to capital



1128 Bauder

but not labor; they might increasingly fail to demarcatemarket areas but continue to define national identi-ties; and they assume different meanings in reference togeopolitics or bio-politics (Balibar 2002). Despite therelatively narrow focus of this article on the scholarlyborder literature related to migration, the polysemic na-ture of the border persists. As Balibar (2002) observed,the border has different meanings for the professor orbusiness executive traveling to an international confer-ence or board meeting and for the young unemployedjob seeker who is denied a visa to cross the border.

Geographers have long treated territory and bordersas variable and shifting concepts (e.g., Gottman1973). More than a decade ago, David Newmanand Anssi Paasi (1998, 187) noted that “stateboundaries are equally social, political and discursiveconstructs . . . [and] have deep symbolic, cultural,historical and religious, often contested meanings for

social communities.” They called on geographers torecognize the “diverse types” of borders, ranging “fromphysical and territorial to the social, personal andsymbolic” (200). A year later, Paasi (1999, 670) wrotethat “boundaries manifest themselves in numeroussocial (economic, cultural, administrative, and politi-cal) practices and discourses.” Around the same time,Balibar (1999) remarked that Europe is an assemblageof sovereign nation states bound up with “as muchpolitical as cultural and ‘spiritual”’ questions of theborder. In the same vein, James Anderson (1996) ar-gued that national borders have multiple purposes and

serve as delineations of physically controlled territory,signifiers of cultural identity, markers of political unity,and other uses. According to this literature, borders areexperienced in various ways and must be theorized asmultifaceted and polysemic entities.

Scholars who concur that the border concept embod-ies multiple dimensions, or aspects, have offered variousschemes of perception and classification of these as-pects. Some stress the dual character of borders. Nicoland Minghi (2005, 681), for example, distinguished be-tween “two very different ways of understanding bor-ders. The first is the understanding of functional and

symbolic entities which ‘do work’ in material and imag-inative ways. The second is to see borders as moresubtle fields which are perceptual, structural and dis-cursive.” Others perceive more than two dimensionsof the border. Malcolm Anderson (1996, 2–3) offered“four dimensions” of frontiers.1 First, they are geopolit-ical instruments of the state; second, their permeabil-ity cannot be entirely controlled; third, frontiers aremarkers of identity; and fourth, “frontier” is a discur-

sive term that is geographically and historically con-tingent. Likewise, Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (2005, 645)suggested that a theory of borders incorporates four dif-ferent analytical “lenses”: local cross-border culture, lo-cal cross-border political influence, market forces andtrade flows, and the policies of multiple levels of gov-ernment. Rob Shields (2006) developed yet anotherfour-part ontology of the border, involving concrete,virtual, abstract, and probabilistic properties.

How should the border, as a single concept featur-ing various aspects, be approached? Newman (2005,401) called for “an all-embracing methodology to dealwith the bordering process. Such a methodology needsto take account of different forms and definitions of boundaries, ranging from the territorial to the aspatialand from the social to the virtual.” Drawing on Paasi’s(1999) work on the Finish–Russian border, Sidaway(2005, 191) suggested that “a border may be read as

semiotic system” that creates meaning through a sys-tem of signs and imaginations. This “methodology” of examining the border resonates with a dialectical ap-proach that mediates between material and subjectivepositions. In this case, the question is not which aspectsof thebordercan be empirically validated or rejected butrather what kind of general approach to the study of bor-ders “allows aspects to be juxtaposed, to be understoodas co-present ‘registers’ which may undercut or negateeach other and affect the functioning of the border or of a boundary drawing project or discourse” (Shields 2006,226). The following discussion explores this question.

Aspect-Seeing

A discussion of the terms aspect and aspect-seeing canprovide valuable insights for investigating the poly-semic nature of borders and for exploring the forma-tion of the border concept. Ludwig Wittgenstein usedthis term to investigate how an object appears to theobserver (Park 1998). In a famous example, he pre-sented the so-called rabbit–duck head—a picture thatcan be seen alternately as the head of a rabbit and

the head of a duck—to illustrate that a single objectcontains two aspects (Wittgenstein [1945/1946] 2001,§1024 [Part II, xi, a3]). In another example, Wittgen-stein shows the image of a triangle that can be seen asapex, mountain, wedge, and so on; the number of as-pects in this case is “virtually unlimited” (Aidun 1982,111). An observer “notices an aspect” (Wittgenstein[1945/1946] 2001, §1024 [Part II, xi, a3]) when she orhe perceives an object in a particular way; with the




“dawning” of a new aspect, the observer recognizesa previously unrecognized meaning of the same ob-ject and experiences an “aspect-change” ( Aspektwech-sel; Wittgenstein [1945/1946] 2001, §1028 [Part II, xi,a18]). Wittgenstein’s use of the term aspect conveys thatmeanings are not simply a matter of passive perceptionbut that meanings are guided by both experience andanticipation.

Wittgenstein himself applied the term aspect mostlyin reference to visual and sensual perception (Park1998). I do not claim that my use of the term in thecontext of the border concept is entirely faithful toWittgenstein’s original intentions. Rather, I follow oth-ers who have expanded on Wittgenstein’s original useof the term. For example, Aidun (1982) suggested thatWittgenstein conceived of the entire field of philos-ophy as aspect-seeing. In the following discussions, Iapply the term aspect and the idea of aspect-seeing to

the concept of the border and the conception of bordersin contemporary scholarship.The appeal of applying the term aspect to the border

is that it permits capturing the polysemic nature of theborder within a single concept. This application res-onates with Balibar’s observation that the border mightnot possess a singular essence but it constitutes a “singlecomplex” (Balibar 2002, xi) and a “symptom, referringto an overdetermination of phenomena” (Balibar 2004,102). As I illustrated earlier, contemporary scholarshipnotices multiple aspects of the border and affirms thechangeof aspects of theborderconcept.Forexample,al-

though they do not directly refer to Wittgenstein, MarkPurcell and Joseph Nevins (2005) used the term aspectto describe the distinct practices of economic liberationand militarization of the U.S.–Mexico border. More-over, scholarship has been willing to fathom the possi-bilityof previously unobserved aspects of the border. Or,to use geographical terminology, as new and previouslyuntheorized border and migration practices emerge, ge-ographers and border scholars have drawn “new typesof atlases” (OTuathail 1999, 151) to grasp these newmeanings of borders. What the notion of overdeter-mination adds in this context is that border practices

and representations cannot always be sorted into neatstories about particular interests or experiences.2

The second appeal of applying the idea of aspect-seeing to the border concept is that each aspectcan be theorized as situated in a particular set of experiences, contexts, and uses and as guided by an-ticipation. This treatment of the term aspect resonateswith the existing literature related to positionality andsituatedness, which has long demonstrated that knowl-

edge is always partial and located in a particular set ofexperiences (e.g., Haraway 1991; Rose 1997). Accord-ingly, authoritative knowledge of the border can neverbe produced from a hypothetical Archimedean vantagepoint. Rather, scholarly discussions of the border arealways located, partial, and incomplete. The idea ofaspect-seeing permits linking various scholarly vantagepoints and imaginations to a consolidated border con-cept. Furthermore, aspect-seeing related to the border isnot the result of purely passive perception but involvesa situated observer’s imagination.

Following Wittgenstein ([1945/1946] 2001, §43),who realized that meanings of concepts are derived fromuses and practices,3 I suggest that the noticing of borderaspects is related to the particular uses of a border andborder practices. In the introduction to an edited vol-ume on borders, van Houtum, Kramsch, and Zierhofer(2005, 2, italics added) concurred, advocating under-

standings of borders that focus on “the complex andvaried patterns of both implicit and explicit borderingand ordering practices.” The preceding discussion alsoshowed that academic scholarship has noticed multi-ple aspects of the border, based on various cultural,economic, social, and political uses and practices ofborders.

The example of the U.S.–Canada border illustrateshow particular practices of cross-border migration pro-duce various meanings of the border.4 A U.S. citizenfrom Seattle can travel east for 4,500 km and is notconsidered an international migrant; however, when

she goes 200 km north to Vancouver, she crosses theU.S.–Canada border and becomes an international mi-grant. The border in this case formally defines peopleas migrants. Concrete “visual objects” (van Houtum,Kramsch, and Zierhofer 2005, 2), such as rivers, lakes,mountain ranges, and shorelines, as well as barbed-wired fences and walls, often mark the border as a phys-ical barrier. In this context the border is imagined as aline in Cartesian space, which people need to cross tobe defined as migrant. It is seen as problematic whenthe border disappears as a visual object, as recently illus-trated when U.S.–Canada border officials were unable

to locate the border because it was overgrown by for-est. A Canadian official of the International BoundaryCommission remarked, “If you can’t see the boundary,then you can’t secure it” (Alberts 2006). This aspect ofthe border, as this official noticed, is that of a line thatcuts across the earth’s surface, and “securing” the bordermeans preventing people from freely crossing this line.

The aspect representing the border as a line inCartesian space is, of course, located, partial, and



1130 Bauder

incomplete. The very geometry of the line dissolves asmigration flows are increasingly monitored “remotely”at airports, or along trucking routes before migrantsreach the actual border “line” (Andreas and Biersteker2003; Walters 2006; Rumford 2008; Vaughan-Williams2008), or at workplaces and in public spaces after theyhave crossed this line (e.g., Coleman 2007; Vaughan-Williams 2008). “[B]orders are no longer at the bor-der,” Balibar (1998, 217–18) observed; rather, they are“dispersed” (Balibar 1999). On both sides of the U.S.–Canada border, migration controls and politics haveshifted scale from the physical border toward the body(Nevins 2002; Mountz 2004). A simple line on a maprepresents only a narrow and partial view of the border.

In the context of the U.S.–Canada border, schol-ars have also noticed other aspects. For example, thisborder can also be conceived as state instrument to ex-ercise sovereignty by managing migration. In her analy-

sis of Canadian immigration law, Catherine Dauvergne(2007, 2008) called migration controls “the last bastionof sovereignty.” Some liberal political theorists concurthat the “border” is an instrument to protect politi-cal and civic order (Hobbes [1651] 1969; Rawls 1971),preserve the right to national community and identity(Walzer 1983) and defend the right to property (Carens1987; Cole 2000).5 In the case of Canada, the state alsoselects immigrants in an effort toward nation buildingand to stimulate economic development (e.g., Greenand Green 1999; Li 2003).

Other scholarship has imagined the same border as

a mechanism of labor exploitation. For many migrants,crossing the border into Canada is associated with a de-valuation of their labor due to discrimination, culturalexclusion, nonrecognition of foreign credentials andexperience, visa regulations, lack of status, and otherfactors (Preston 2003; Bauder 2006b; Sharma 2006).Migrants who cross borders without the state’s per-mission are criminalized and relegated to the informaleconomy.6 According to this aspect, the Canadian bor-der facilitates the control, disciplining, and exploitationof labor.

A final example illustrates the situated and located

nature of border aspect-seeing. International borderscholarship has imagined borders as markers of distinc-tion that delineate territories of shared cultural identityand practices (e.g., Newman and Paasi 1998). Draw-ing on Hannah Arendt, Williams (2006, 96) suggestedthat borders are “constitutive of a toleration of differ-ence and diversity in human societies.” Newman andPaasi (1998, 194) evoke Bourdieu’s (1984) notion of distinction in the context of borders that separate those

who belong from those who do not. This border aspect,however, might not be noticeable in relation to a sec-tion of the U.S.–Canada border that slices through theCascadian. This region can be seen as a space wherepeople share a common “state of mind” (Sparke 2005,58) that supposedly evolved from the region’s distinctecology (Alper 2005; Artibise 2005). Conversely, inother geographical contexts, a border might have phys-ically disappeared but still functions as a mechanismof distinction. The Dutch–German border, for exam-ple, is open to people but continues to divide “two na-tion states with different languages, norms, and habits”(Struver 2005, 217).

The preceding examples illustrate that border aspectsare always located, partial, and incomplete representa-tions of the border. The impossibility of uncovering anoverarching ordering principle that unifies various as-pects of the border has presented a critical moment in

an ongoing dialectic of the concept of the border, moti-vating researchers to continuously reanalyze, retheorize,and rethink borders. In the next section, I examine thedialectical movement of the border concept in greaterdetail.

Border Dialectics

A common interpretation of dialectics relates to thejuxtaposition of contradictory perspectives that negateeach other. Following this interpretation, scholarship

has maintained the dialectical movement of the borderconcept by investigating various practices, acknowl-edging multiple meanings, and highlighting the coex-istence of multiple aspects of the border. Some scholarshave explicitly interpreted their analyses of bordersthrough a dialectical framework. For example, in acontext not directly related to migration, Laetitia Per-rier Brusle (2007) juxtaposes the legal frontier with thepioneer front. The former corresponds to a fixed limit inCartesian space based on the European political prac-tice of delineating the state; the latter to the “Amer-ican” practice of a flexible boundary and territorial

expansion. The oppositional relationship between thetwo aspects produces a symbolic territory of the modernLatin American state. More closely related to the themeof cross-border migration, researchers have noted thedialectical contradiction between the cross-bordermobility of capital and the relative immobility of laborwithin a global capitalist system that privileges capitaland exploits labor (e.g., Sassen 1988, 1996; Kearney1991; Freeman 1995; Bauder2003;Varsanyi andNevins




2007). Along these lines, Andreas (1998–1999, 593–94) observed the “paradox” of weakening economic andmilitary aspects and the simultaneous strengthening of policing practices at the same borders. Andreas furtherdemonstrated how these contradictory border practicesare situated in “distinct historical legacies, state capac-ities, regional contexts, and border image concerns.”Similarly, Purcell and Nevins (2005) have examineddialectical state–citizen and national–local relation-ships to explain contradictory U.S.–Mexico borderpractices and perceptions (see also Nevins 2000).

According to a Hegelian understanding of dialectics,a first negation, which is characterized by contradict-ing perspectives, is met by a second negation, which,rather than privileging one perspective over the other,mediates between these perspectives. The resolution, orsublation( Aufhebung ), of partial, one-sided, and incom-plete insights leads to a comprehensive and universal

meaning of the concept (Begriff ; Hegel [1807] 2005,96–111)7; however, such a comprehensive and univer-sal meaning of the border concept cannot be achieved.Hegel’s idealistic claim that the dialectic leads to astate where truth and thought conflate in a concept haslong been rejected in favor of positions that acknowl-edge the fragmented and political nature of knowledge(e.g., Foucault 1970, 1972). Furthermore, critical the-orists have warned of the consequences of seeking toreach a point at which the dialectical process resolvesinto universal meaning (e.g., Horkheimer and Adorno[1947] 2004). Marcuse (1964), for example, observed

that “one-dimensional” thought denies meaningful re-flection and critical engagement in social progression.Critical theory therefore strives toward upholding op-positional, or negative, thinking and thereby affirmsthe continuation of the dialectical movement (Adorno1963; Marcuse 1964). For radical geographers, such asDavid Harvey (1972, 7), “truth lies in the dialecticalprocess rather than in the statements derived from theprocess.”

According to such critique, the concept of the bordermust be recognized as inherently unstable and overde-termined. A stage at which a universal and fixed mean-

ing of the border concept exists is neither attainablenor desirable. Rather, a concept can be “turned overso many times until it is more than it is. [However] Itbreaks into pieces as soon as it insists on itself” (Adorno1963, 151, my translation). The very insistence on theconcept of the border is also the moment at which itbecomes intangible.8

The preceding discussion showed that establishedborder and migration scholarship embraces the border

as a multidimensional concept of which numerous as-pects are noticed. The recognition of multipleborder as-pects constitutes a moment in the border dialectic thatdoes not permit the border concept to be fixed, stable,or universal. Furthermore, scholars have sought ways touphold the dialectic of the border concept. Newman(2006b, 156), for example, suggested that border schol-ars are “well prepared” to bridge various perspectivesby “developing a common understanding of terminolo-gies and the creation of a shared glossary” (see also

Newman 2006a). Although this bridging language willnecessarily stop short of sublating various aspects intoa universal concept of the border, it enables aspects tobe juxtaposed and contradictions to be revealed.

Framing border scholarship as an endeavor of dialec-tical aspect-seeing provides a platform to investigatehow this scholarship can actively engage in the dialec-tical movement of the border concept. The possibil-

ity of engagement, however, raises important questionsabout the politics and nature of such an engagement.In the next section, I discuss the potential roles for crit-ical geographers related to this possibility. Because theborder concept is at the heart of the geographic disci-pline, geographers might have a unique “responsibility”(Grass and Bourdieu 2002, 66) of critically engagingwith the border concept and—in the tradition of crit-ical scholarship—helping enable progressive practicesrelated to borders and migration.

Toward a Critical Geography of the Border

The ability to notice multiple aspects and the recog-nition of the dialectical movement of the border con-cept are prerequisites for the active engagement bycritical scholars in this dialectic. The preceding dis-cussion illustrated that border scholars and migrationresearchers have already been seeking ways to engagewith the border dialectic. The idealist Hegel, however,does not offer much guidance on how this engagementought to occur. Although he recognized the agencyof the subject in the dialectical process, Hegel ([1820]

1970, [1837] 1961) rejected the idea that philosophycan anticipate the new or that scholarship can shapethe dialectical movement. According to this view, theacademic subject is only able to observe passively andto interpret the construction of meanings of the bor-der but it has no means to shape, transform, or pro-duce these meanings itself. Karl Marx and FriedrichEngels, however, responded to Hegel’s passive idealismin a manner that is more useful for critical scholarly



1132 Bauder

practice. Following Ludwig Feuerbach ([1841] 1986),they famously sought to turn Hegel’s dialectics fromthe head to the feet9 by emphasizing the material ratherthan idealist foundations of the dialectical movement.This perspective of a materially grounded dialectic cor-responds with contemporary treatments of the borderconcept in academic scholarship, whichderive meaningbased on empirically observed material practices. Thisperspective is also captured in the idea of the aspect,as I developed earlier, which suggests that meanings of borders reflect practices related to borders.

Moreover, Marx understood scholarship as a “rev-olutionary practice” that transforms material relations(Marx [1845] 1964). Although he adopted Feuerbach’sposition that the dialectical process is rooted in materialpractices, he critiqued Feuerbach’s materialism for con-ceiving of the scholar as a mere bystander rather thanas a participant in the dialectical movement.10 Marx

realized that scholarship is an educational activity thatchanges the information and points of reference avail-able to agents when they act. This break with Hegel’s(and Feuerbach’s) passive scholarship has presented amodel for critical research. Lefebvre (2001, 769), for ex-ample, noted in the context of political action vis-a-visthe state that “the ‘real’ should not be permitted to ob-scure that of the possible. Rather, it is the possible thatshould serve as the theoretical instrument for explor-ing the real.”11 Similarly, Harvey (1972, 11) called ongeographers more than thirty-five years ago to “formu-late concepts and categories, theories and arguments,

which we can apply in the process of bringing about ahumanizing change.”

The work by Balibar (e.g., 2002, 2004) advocatessuch a role for scholarship in critically engaging theborder concept. He acknowledged the value of Marx’srevolutionary practice of unveiling the material basis of the border concept; however, Balibar (2002, xiii) alsostressed the need “to invert this pattern—not to return tothe idea that ‘ideas drive history,’ but to emphasize thefact that ‘material’ processes are themselves (over- andunder-) determined by the processes of the imaginary.”This opinion is echoed by Nevins (2002, 153), who ar-

gues that “boundaries, emanating from both ideal andmaterial processes, are an outgrowth and, simultane-ously, a producer of nationalism, state power, and theability of the state and the nation to share our col-lective consciousness, and thus, practices.” Borders arenot mere mechanical reflections of material practicesbut also the product of imagination.12 To use an ear-lier example, the imagination of the border as a linein Cartesian space has inspired the drawing of the ma-

terial U.S.–Canada border as a straight line throughthe Rocky Mountains along the forty-ninth parallel.Meanings of the border shape material practices associ-ated with borders and people’s cross-border mobility. Arole of critical scholarship is to present fresh imaginar-ies of the border that enable possible material practicesof migration. In this way, critical border scholarshipreverses the aspect-seeing process. Rather than antici-patingmeanings of theborder on thebasis of practices of mobility, it envisions meanings of borders that imaginenew uses of borders and anticipates possible practicesof migration.13 Or, to use Balibar’s terminology, freshscholarly imaginaries of the border over- and underde-termine practices of cross-border migration.

The task for critical geography is thus twofold. First,it must continue to affirm the impossibility of fixingthe meaning of the border. The various aspects of theborder represent meanings and material practices that

cannot be unified in a stable and coherent concept.14

By embracing aspect-seeing and scrutinizing theconnection between particular material practices andassociated meanings of the border, critical scholarshipprevents the mystification and abstraction of the borderconcept. Second, by recognizing the incompletenessand instability of the border concept and its aspects,critical geographers can actively and creatively engagewith the imagination of the border. In other words,the polysemy of the border provides the opportu-nity to articulate previously unrecognized aspects asinterventions in the border dialectic.15

The prospect of active engagement in the border di-alectic raises the question of which aspects of the bordercritical geographers should help make noticeable. Bal-ibar (2002, 2004) proposed to conceive of the border asa democratic institution, “put . . . at the service of men[sic]and submit[ted] to their collective control” (Balibar2004, 108). A democratic border would accommodatethe interests of those people who are most affected byborders, including migrants who are kept from crossingborders, workers who are exploited by border practices,and immigrants who are denied identities of belong-ing. Such a vision of the border resonates with a basic

understanding of democracy, which entails that peo-ple affected by decisions should be involved in makingthem (e.g., Barnett 2008). Such a democratic visionof the border appears to be dialectically opposed tothe contemporary state. For example, Lefebvre (2001)has argued that the contemporary state is not a demo-cratic institution but acts in the interests of a few. Ina similar vein, Ranciere (1999) suggested that democ-racy is defined precisely by the inclusion of subjects




who do not correspond with the state or national soci-ety. In the context of cross-border migration, the lackof democracy is a particular problem: States regulatecross-border migration in a manner that excludes mi-grants in a blatantly undemocratic manner. Even if thedecision-making process of the state were completelydemocratically organized, the decision to regulate thestate’s border would by definition not include people onthe other side of the border. Conceiving of the borderfrom the viewpoint of the state is therefore inherentlyundemocratic.

A brief look at the literature illustrates the state-centered nature of many aspects of the border thatare noticed in contemporary scholarship. For exam-ple, from a historical perspective, borders have beenseen as a mechanism for European states to “orga-nize the world’s exploitation” (Balibar 1999). Some re-searchers conceive of cross-border labor migration as

the state’s mechanism for protecting and regulating na-tional labor markets (e.g., Bhagwati 1998; Taylor 2005).Other scholarship has investigated border practices toshow how “states are reinventing themselves” (Andreas1998–1999, 614) in light of economic and geopoliti-cal global changes. Purcell and Nevins (2005) theo-rized the state by examining how the dialectic betweenpolitical actors and citizen groups shapes border prac-tices. Scholarship also shows how borders define stateidentities by “actualizing” (Shields 2006, 230), “insti-tutionalizing” (Eder 2006, 269), and “reifying” culturaldifferences (B. Anderson 1991).16 The geopolitical lit-

erature on nationhood affirms this link between bor-ders and state identity (e.g., Habermas 1979, 1996;Agnew 1998; Eva 1998; Wilson and Donnan 1998;OTuathail 1999; Brunet-Jailly 2005), nationhood (e.g.,Honig 2001; Dauvergne 2005; Bauder 2009), and na-tional belonging (e.g., Paasi 1999; Nevins 2002; Sparke2005; Newman 2006b); however, imaginations of theborder that embrace the possibility of democratic borderpractices must look elsewhere but the state.

A second look at the established literature can pro-vide insights into non-state-centered meanings andpractices related to borders. For example, studies of

transnationalism have assumed a less state-centeredperspective of migration, articulating border crossingas a practice that binds people (e.g., Kelly and Lusis2006). Similarly, borderland studies have conceived of the border as a shared experience between the citizens of different states (e.g., Pratt and Alison-Brown 2000;Prokkola 2008). Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2002,326) critique the border and migration literature forreifying national communities and reproducing the

nation-state as a taken-for-granted category, and theyemphasize the need “to push aside the blinders ofmethodological nationalism,” which takes the national“container” for granted as a unit of analysis and imag-ination. In the tradition of critical scholarship, whichassumes a role in helping prepare the conditions forprogressive change (Mitchell 2004, 2008; Bauder andEngel-Di Mauro 2008), the intervention by criticalgeographers must challenge taken-for-granted, state-centered perspectives of borders that are entrenchedin the popular and “official” imagination.

In a European context, Beck and Grande (2007, 33–37) sought to offer an alternative imagination of theborder beyond methodological nationalism. Echoingthe language of “aspect-blindness”—which Wittgen-stein ([1945/1946] 2001, 1058 [Part II, xiv]) used todescribe the inability to notice an aspect—Beck andGrande (2007, 34) remarked that methodological na-

tionalism has rendered many scholars “Europe-blind”(europablind), stifling imaginations of possible alterna-tive communities and borders. In an attempt to movebeyond methodological nationalism, Beck and Grandepresented the possibility of a cosmopolitan Europe, inwhich Europeans acquire an identity of national be-longing and transnational mobility. In this vision, theborder serves as mediator between the inside and theoutside. Other commentators have envisioned the bor-der in a similar way as a catalyst of cosmopolitanismthat is “facilitating mobility” (Rumford 2007, 330)and enabling the “entanglement” of different moder-

nities (Therborn 2003). Creating meanings of bordersas meeting places and shared experiences has already in-spired European practices and policies toward mobility(Jensen and Richardson 2007). Such border practices,however, are not necessarily democratic. Mere scaleshifting without re-envisioning the border might repro-duce practices of exclusion at other scales or might re-sult in selective exclusion, as contemporary border andimmigration practices at the perimeter of the EuropeanUnion illustrate (van Houtum and Pijpers 2007).

Similarly, a vision of the border that advocates theunrestrained movement of people might not live up to

the claim of being democratic. Scholars have supportedthe vision of “open” borders in the name of freedom andhuman equality (Carens 1987; Isbister 1996; Cole 2000;

Juss 2005; Pecoud and de Guchteneire 2005) and so-cial justice (Hayter 2000; Bauder 2003); however, unre-strained cross-border mobilityalso affects people who donot move but who are excluded from mobility decisions.For example, it might lead to the departure of able-bodied, affluent, and skilled people and cause a “brain



1134 Bauder

drain” in some areas that adversely affects the societiesof departure (e.g., Kirigia et al. 2006). In addition, thepossibility of a “simple” utopia in which “people livewhere they want to live” (Best 2003, 199) might antici-pate neoliberal practices that hyperexploit workers andintensify identity conflicts (OTuathail 1999; Hiebert2003). A taste of such a neoliberal future is offered byBinswanger (2006), who defends an open-border argu-ment in a U.S. context on the basis of “the rights of those American citizens who want to sell or rent theirproperty to the highest bidders [and] the American busi-nesses that want to hire the lower cost workers.” Copingwith these effects of open borders would require “com-pensating measures at some other scale” (Samers 2003,214). Balibar (2004, 110) himself defended the exis-tence and management of borders in light of the needto deal with practices of collective identity construc-tion, geopolitics, and state formation.

The possibility of democratic, non-state-centeredborder practices will necessarily be situated, partial,and incomplete (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002).Democracy is itself a concept that has no universalmeaning and does not refer to a fixed set of practices.Instead, this concept, similar to that of the border, en-compasses multiple aspects that are located, partial, andincomplete (Saward 2003; Barnett 2008). From a pro-ceduralist perspective, for example, democracy is en-acted through a range of “devises,” such as elections,parliamentary debate, or public protest, which are al-ways geographically located at particular places, such

as voting booths, a parliament building, or in pub-lic places. Resonating with the preceding discussionof the border dialectic, Saward (2003, 167) suggestedthat “openness to new devises . . . might enact new vi-sions of democratic principles.” Pairing the two con-cepts of the border and democracy produces an aspectof a democratic border that is necessarily unstable andincomplete.

A democratic conception of the border thus cannotrely on stablepractices or fixed meanings. Balibar (2008,526) observed that “democracy is never something thatyou have, that you can claim to possess (therefore ‘bring’

or ‘confer’); it is only something that you collectivelycreate or recreate. It is not achieved but always is com-ing or becoming.” Lefebvre (2001, 780) concurred that“democracy . . . is never a condition but always a strug-gle.” A democratic vision of the border must embracecontradiction and the dialectical movement. The imag-ination of the democratic border aspect affirms the taskfor critical scholarship to recognize the incompletenessand instability of the border concept.

What kind of practices would the imagination of the border as a democratic institution anticipate? Ac-cording to the dialectical nature of the border conceptand the situated nature of border aspects, there can beno singular, universal, or necessary practice capable of enacting the democratic meaning of the border. Nev-ertheless, assuming, for example, that a core feature of democracy is the inclusion of the excluded to expresstheir dissent and disagreement (Ranciere 1999, 2004),a prerequisite for democratic border practices wouldbe the inclusion of migrants so that their voices areheard.17 The practices through which inclusion is ac-complished are located, situated,and context particular.

For example, in response to the border managementby the American state—in particular a proposed billthat would criminalize millions of migrants who crossedthe border into the United States—protests eruptedin the spring of 2006 in numerous major U.S. cities.

Immigrants, many of whom did not possess formal cit-izenship and who were formally excluded from politi-cal participation, enacted democracy by making theirvoices heard and expressing their dissent and disagree-ment (Loyd and Burridge 2007; Pulido 2007); however,these protests represented a limited and contradictorydemocratic practice. For example, by waving Ameri-can, Mexican, Guatemalan, and other national flags,protesters reinforced the nation-state, the very insti-tution responsible for their exclusion (Bauder 2006a,2008). In addition, the focus of the protests was on theconditions imposed on migrants who were already in

the United States and thus had managed to cross theborder in the first place; they did not center on the prac-tices of cross-border migration. A democratic vision of the border, however, also involves practices that enactdemocracy at the location of the border. Although the2006 protests were important enactments of democracy,they were also particular and situated actions that needto be complemented by other wide-ranging practices.The vision of a democratic border anticipates a multi-tude of possibilities of located, partial, and incompletepractices.

Conclusion

The border is a polysemic and overdetermined geo-graphical concept. In this article, I show that geogra-phers and border scholars have been able to carefullydistinguish among various aspects, capturing differentmaterial practices and meanings of the border. Infact, not conflating these aspects of the border intoan abstract concept is an important task for critical




geographic scholarship. Almost a half-century ago,Marcuse (1964, 88) observed that concepts such as“freedom” and “equality” have been used uncritically asabstractions in an increasingly one-dimensional masssociety. Geographers must prevent the border conceptfrom meeting a similar fate and continue their commit-ment to aspect-seeing related to geographical conceptssuch as that of the border (Aidun 1982).

Moreover, geographers can critically engage in theborder concept. Lefebvre (2001) observed that the pos-sible always contradicts the real. This necessary contra-diction constitutes a moment that geographers can useas an “instrument” (Lefebvre 2001, 769) to engage theborder dialectic. In particular, they can articulate freshmeanings of the border that challenge existing borderpractices and anticipate new material possibilities. Therole of critical geography is precisely to facilitate thedawning of new border aspects and draw the atlases

that make these aspects noticeable.Beck and Grande (2007, 17) proposed that the bor-dering of Europe is an “open political project.” In a sim-ilar European context, Rumford (2008, 10) remarkedoptimistically, “Borderwork is less and less somethingover which people have no control.” These commen-taries point toward the possibility of democratic mean-ings and practices related to borders. A democraticborder, however, should not be understood as a stableend condition but rather a located, partial, and incom-plete aspect in the dialectical movement of the borderconcept. I have furthermore argued that the possibil-

ity of a border that regulates migration in a democraticmanner requires envisioning the border as decoupledfrom the state. The possibility of a democratic bordermight, in fact, necessitate “to invent another kind of state” (Bourdieu, in Grass and Bourdieu 2002, 71).

The preceding discussion of the border concept isrelevant to scholarly geographic practice in general.Aspect-seeing and exposing the contradictions of geo-graphical concepts is of general concern for critical ge-ographers,not only thoseexaminingborders. Moreover,the multidimensional and situated nature of materialpractices and meanings related to geographical con-

cepts permits critical geographical scholarship to engageactively in the dialectic of these concepts. Transforma-tion is possible through the ruthless exposure of exist-ing material practices and the articulation of meaningsthat inspire possible new practices. By rejecting one-dimensional, “either–or” thinking (Hyndman 2003),critical geographers can pursue “democratic experimen-talism” in a world characterized by “an open politicalhorizon” (Amin and Thrift 2005, 232) and at the same

time stay involved and “help focus (the) transformativepotential” (Smith 2005, 898) of social struggle.

As conventional meanings of the border are increas-ingly in flux and existing border practices are perceivedto be insufficient to meet the needs of people, gov-ernments, businesses, migrants, and other groups (e.g.,Balibar 1998), the proposal of fresh visions of the bor-der presents a particular opportunity for geography toassert its relevance. Critical geographers teaching atuniversities and colleges can play a particularly impor-tant role in presenting fresh geographical imaginationsof borders to a broader audience that engages in ev-eryday border practices (Bauder and Engel-Di Mauro2008). Obviously, critical academic geographers are notthe only agents engaging in the dialectical movementof the border; the state, supranational organizations,the media, citizen groups, and multinational corpo-rations are among the other influential players (e.g.,

Jensen and Richardson 2007; Rumford 2007, 2008).In the “web of human relations,” any efforts of proac-tive engagement will inevitably produce unintendedconsequences (Arendt [1958] 1998, 183). For exam-ple, although the spring 2006 protests, which I men-tioned earlier, might have been inspired by a vision ofdemocratic inclusion, the participants also reinforcedthe nation-state, which is the main institution respon-sible for their exclusion (Bauder 2006a, 2008; Pulido2007). Despite the prospect of such unintended conse-quences, critical geographers and border scholars muststay engaged in the dialectical movement of the border

concept, continue to reflect on their imaginations ofthe border, and present visions of the border that havethe potential to translate into new possible materialpractices.

Acknowledgments

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada supported this research. I thank Michael Wein-garten and Ulrike Ramming for their engaging dis-

cussions, and Audrey Kobayashi, Alexander Murphy,Karen Uchic, and the anonymous reviewers for theircomments.

Notes

1. M. Anderson (1996) used the term frontier rather than“border” to signify the flexibility of the concept (New-man 2006b).



1136 Bauder

2. Althusser and Balibar ([1968] 2006) borrowed theterm overdetermined from psychoanalysis to conceptu-alize multiple causality. Their translator Ben Brewster(2006, 315–16) explained that “the overdeterminiationof a contradiction is the reflection in it of its conditionsof existence within the complex whole, that is, of theother contradictionsin the complex whole.” Balibar usedthe term in a similar way in the context of the border

concept. I thank one of the reviewers for drawing myattention to this point.

3. In his earlier work, Wittgenstein (1989, 3.326, my trans-lation) said, “To recognize the symbol in the sign, onemust pay attention to the meaningful use.”

4. I do not claim that my discussion of this example repre-sents an inclusive list of all aspects of this border. Ratherthan pursuing the impossible aim of producing a com-plete catalog of fixed meanings of the border, my objec-tive is to illustrate how coexisting border aspects defineparticular relationships between material practice andmeaning.

5. From a Marxist perspective, this rights-based liberalismis an ideological superstructure that affirms the capitalistmode of production. Thebordered liberal state canbe in-terpreted as a product of bourgeois interests (Hobsbawn1992, 38–40; Habermas 1996).

6. Neoclassical economists concur that borders createharmful labor mobility restrictions that disrupt the freecirculation of human capital (Hamilton and Whalley1984).

7. Hegel ([1807] 2005, 98) used the example of the conceptof salt, which is defined by simultaneously being “whiteand sharp and cubic and of a particular mass, etc.”

8. In Adorno’s (1963, 151) words, the “catastrophe” of in-sisting on the border concept provides this moment.

9. Or, in other words, “In contrast to the German [i.e.Hegelian] philosophy, which descends from heaven toearth, here one ascends from earth to heaven” (Marx

and Engels 1953, 22, my translation).10. These differences between Hegel and Marx are perhapsbest expressed by two famous quotes by both individuals.Hegel ([1820] 1970, 59–60) poetically expressed his con-viction that philosophy has no role in actively shapinghistory in the following way: “When philosophy paintsits grey in grey, then a configuration of life has grownold, and cannot be rejuvenated by this grey in grey, butonly understood; the Owl of Minerva takes flight only asdusk begins to fall.” Conversely, Marx’s eleventh thesison Feuerbach expresses the responsibility of scholarshipto engage in the material processes: “The philosophershave only interpreted the world in various ways; thepoint, however, is to change it.”

11. Samers (2003) brought this quote to my attention.

12. Wittgenstein’s (1994, 229, my translation) statementthat “the aspect is subordinated to the will” resonateswith this assessment (see also Wittgenstein [1945/1946]2001, 1058 [Part II, xiv]).

13. Gregory (2004, 18), for example, shows how, in a sim-ilar way, “Protean power” has relied on the productionof imaginative geographies that shape “the practices of those who draw upon it, actively constituting its object,”in this case the “Orient.”

14. To resort back to a comparison with Wittgenstein andhis example of the rabbit–duck head, a rabbit and a

duck have indeed little in common other than beingrepresented by the same sign.

15. Laclau and Mouffe (1985, 95) asserted that for Hegel“identity is never positive and closed in itself, but isconstituted as transition, relation, difference. If, how-ever, Hegel’s logical relations become contingent tran-sitions, the connections between them cannot be fixedas moments of an underlying or sutured totality. This

means they are articulations.” For Laclau and Mouffe(1985) this articulation is a discursive practice that in-volves the entire realm of human action, including crit-ical scholarship.

16. Even the mere visual contour of a state border can func-tion as a “logo” (B. Anderson 1991, 175) that evokesnational pride and patriotism.

17. Interestingly, although migrants might be subordinatedand excluded from democratic participation, a conditionof equality exists in that they are recognized as being dif-ferent andthus capable of dissent. Ranciere(1999, 2004)explained that difference between groups is only possibleunder the condition of sameness. For example, the slavemust be able to understand an order by the master andobey it, which requires an equality of understanding.

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Correspondence: Department of Geography, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario M5B 2K3, Canada, e-mail: [email protected].

toward a critical geography of the border

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