Myth: The World and the EU are Going Borderless
Maura Kitchens is a senior at the UNC-Chapel Hill studying Contemporary European Studies, Geography, and German, and will matriculate into the TransAtlantic Masters Program in the fall. She hopes to use the knowledge that she has gained both inside and outside the classroom to act as a champion of social justice, mental health awareness, international relations, and migration practices.
Along with growing awareness of the EU, misconceptions tend to follow. On common misconception is that the EU, and the world for that matter, are reducing and perhaps, eliminating, borders. Within Tabarrok’s moral and economic arguments in The Case for Getting Rid of Borders-Completely, he claims, “All people should be free to move about the earth, uncaged by the arbitrary lines known as borders.” (Tabarrok) In a continuously globalizing society, the notions of borders and bordering practices have evolved with this transformation of movement that has generated a new interpretation of modernity. Though in recent decades the world has seen fewer exclusionary borders in the movement of goods with lower tariffs, discontinuance of embargos, and establishment of free trade areas, physical and conceptual manifestations of borders continue to dominate society, limiting the free movement of certain people and populations. Along with this rapidly globalizing society comes the notion of inequality dictated by borders, granting some a more global and free world experience, whilst restricting others to certain areas. Diener and Hagan claim, “borders continue to play a central role in shaping, dividing, and uniting the world’s societies, economies, and ecosystems.” (Diener and Hagan) The ability to cross certain borders typically stems from some classification, be it citizenship, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, etc. In this sense, according to Anderson and O’Dowd, “borders look inwards and outwards: they simultaneously unify and divide, include and exclude. They are coercive, disabling and limiting, including and excluding many people against their will.” (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999, 596)
The term globalization, which is pivotal to understanding the re-conceptualization of borders, refers to a generalized conception that there are both more and faster interactions on a global scale than ever before, creating a global network of interconnectedness. Sparke claims in “Globalization” in Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration, “globalization is the extension, acceleration, and intensification of consequential worldwide interconnections.” (Sparke, 2) With this newfound sense of an interconnected and seemingly closer world than ever, borders are a point of interest as they tend to regulate freedom of movement rather than augment it. These definitions of globalization exhibit multiplicity within the concepts of citizenship and borders for different people.
Europe’s refugee border case study:
Certain groups within and around the EU have been excluded from spaces through internal and external conceptual European borders that materialize as technicalities in laws. Similarly, migrants exist and travel within spaces that are not necessarily politically or legally defined, but have also been excluded from spaces based on conceptual borders. The spaces in which migrants exist and the bordering practices used to control them create an undefined political border space. With the growing notion of conceptual borders, the question What are these conceptual borders in fact bordering? arises. In their article, State Project Europe: The transformation of the European Border Regime and the Production of Bare Life, Buckel and Wissel claim, “Borders therefore mark not only the boundaries of a territory, but also the boundaries of democracy and law.” (Buckel and Wissel) The creation of new undefined political space, as in the case of the west Balkan corridor through which migrants pass to access European destination countries, demonstrates that new borders are consistently created that bind the rule of law and democracy. Within this new space of exception, the west Balkan corridor, the limitations of democracy and law are exemplified in the suspension of human rights.
In camps, refugees are stripped of their rights. Human rights and political liberties are essentially suspended for most refugees and asylum seekers in migrant camps across Europe. Buckel claims, “the moment individuals left the state to which they were subservient by birth and national affiliation, the moment they were unable to claim their civil rights outside of their territory, the became uncertain about their fundamental human rights.” (Buckel and Wissel) This type of border puts a limit on the implementation of democracy and law. In these camps, established on the outskirts of supposedly developed countries with strong liberal democracies, a space exists where democracy and law are halted.
“Borders contribute to the production of the population as a known and governable unit.” (Wissel) This type of border operates under the premise that the nation-state dominates. It is said that it is easier for some to imagine the end of the world than the end of nations. “To use Balibar’s terms, [there exists] the illusionary yet powerful assumption that “generations reproducing within an almost unchanging territory in almost stable relationships for centuries have passed on an unchanging essence.” (Balibar) In the case of bordering practices by nation, the establishment of citizens and particular sets of rights have historically existed mutually. In the case of Europe, “[European] Union citizenship is the only instance of a post and transnational membership that is combined with the rights of citizenship.” In the case of migrants, national citizenship and the rights that go along with it are removed.
Conclusively, one can assert in our consistently globalizing world that the transformation of borders, both physical and conceptual, is apparent with bordering practices towards migrants and refugees within Europe’s borders. The use of bordering practices, such as creating an undefined space in which to border refugees, signals a changing order in society with respect to borders. While some people or things are given privilege with freedom of movement within a globalizing society, others are neglected and purposefully excluded from spaces. The changing dynamics of borders with regard to classifying humans based on origin, nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, etc. signals that while globalization can create “interconnectedness” in some areas, others are ignored and left out of the globalizing realm completely. Additionally, the creation of new border spaces poses a new deliberation. While Tabarrok and other scholars claim that borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant, the creation of new borders, both conceptual and physical, are constructed constantly, disproving the growing misconception that the EU is ‘going borderless’ per say. This dichotomy between the accepted notion that borders, particularly national borders, are disappearing, and therefore all borders are disappearing, radically contradicts the erection of new borders and bordering practices that ostracize vast numbers of the global population and those in and around Europe.
Bibliography
Anderson, James & Liam O’Dowd (1999) Borders, Border Regions and Territoriality: Contradictory Meanings, Changing Significance, Regional Studies, 33:7, 593–604, DOI: 10.1080/00343409950078648
Astier, Henri. “France’s Unwanted Roma.” BBC News, BBC, 13 Feb. 2014, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25419423.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Roma.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 16 Oct. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/Rom.
Buckel, Sonja and Jens Wissel. State Project Europe: The Transformation of the European Border Regime and the Production of Bare Life. International Political Sociology. 2010, 4, pp. 33–49.
Diener, Alexander C. and Joshua Hagen. 2009. “Theorizing borders in a ‘borderless world’: globalization, territory and identity.” Geography Compass 3(3): pp. 1196–1216.
FRANCE. “Roma Children Refused Access to Lyon Schools.” France 24, France 24, 29 Jan. 2013, www.france24.com/en/20130129-roma-children-schooled-french-police-station.
“French Minister Valls Defends Call for Roma Expulsions.” BBC News, BBC, 25 Sept. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24273380.
Martin, Marie. “Expulsion of Roma: the French Government’s Broken Promise.” Statewatch, www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-222-france-roma-expulsion.p
“New French Government Moves against Roma Camps.” BBC News, BBC, 9 Aug. 2012, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19194639.
Sparke, Matthew. 2013. “Globalization” in Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration.” Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1–25. Tabarrok, Alex. 2015. “The case for getting rid of borders — completely.” The Atlantic. October 10. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/get-rid-borders-completely/409501/
Wires, News. “Hollande in Hotseat as Roma Deportations Divide Govt.” France 24, France 24, 30 Sept. 2013, www.france24.com/en/20130930-hollande-hotseat-roma-valls- deportations-divide-government.
Williams et al. 2014. Chapter 4: “The South in a globalizing economy” in Geographies of Developing Areas: The Global South in a Changing World, 2nd ed., pp. 95–128.
“World Report 2018: Rights Trends in European Union.” Edited by Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch, 18 Jan. 2018, www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country- chapters/european-union#.
This essay is one of three winners of the 2019 EU Today Essay Contest, supported by a Getting to Know Europe grant from the Delegation of the European Union to the United States.
