Bordering and Ordering our Society
Border is a limit or a barrier created to indicate division of space. It can be understood as a line (visible or invisible) that separates a unit or a collective from the other. Their significance is derived from their ability to define, segregate, order, communicate or implicate different meanings to different spaces.
Gabriel Popescu in his book titled ‘Bordering and Ordering the Twenty-first Century’, talks about organising human behaviour through creation of borders and boundaries,
“Borders have traditionally served the role of ordering society. Making borders is a means for organising human behaviour in space by regulating movement in space. Thus bordering in space is a means of ordering space, two sides of the process by which humans appropriate space”.
Curious about such divisions of space and its afforded behaviours, this series presents observations on existence of borders in our society and their creation as a social practice. We look at how meaning making happens on either side of these invisible lines, how they get negotiated over a period of time, in some cases changing the nature of the border itself.
These observations are taken from our everyday engagement with the city and its spaces and present an insight into the lives of the cultures they are associated with. Through each case, we try to understand how these borders not only separate people but might also give rise to different connections forming over time.
In Deepak’s take on the architectural structures of housing complexes of Vasant Kunj one can see how our need to be unique gets represented on the facades of the buildings, where, in some cases the structures have been redrawn too. It does therefore beg a question — what should be provided as a ‘raw housing unit’?
In Shreya’s article one can see how the Delhi government’s decision to reserve coaches in the Delhi metro has led to instances of ‘gendering’ spaces, where non-reserved spaces can be considered male-only spaces. Shouldn’t our civic infrastructure be non-biased? In non-biased environments how should we think of safety for minorities or vulnerable classes without building socio-psychological boundaries within them?
Nishita, in her article on cocoons of our everyday life explores the border as a personal narrative. The need to build one unconsciously changes the way we perceive the world. Not building one might make us feel vulnerable. In this state of constant friction, how might we think about our personal boundaries and build mechanisms to aid reflection, correct our personal borders, when necessary.
This article is co-authored by Shreya Garg and Nishita Gill as part of Crossing Borders, a mini-series undertaken by the Culture Lab at Treemouse. The series explores the repercussions of building socio-psychological boundaries to overcome challenges of urbanisation & invokes critique around ‘borders’ being the way to maintain order. For more on this visit www.culture-lab.in. If you’d like to contribute to this series write to us at shreyagarg@treemouse.com or nishita@treemouse.com
