Anssi Paasi (Political Geography, University of Oulu, Finland)

The shifting research frontiers: a genealogical approach to the evolution of border studies

Border studies have become one the most visible interdisciplinary research areas in social sciences and humanities since the 1990s. Diverging concepts of border have multiplied and radically challenged the by tradition dominant ideas of borders as lines dividing political territories at various spatial scales, especially at the scale of the national state. This presentation will outline a genealogical approach to analyze the long-term evolution of border studies. The paper will trace and identify four diverging strata that have characterized border research. They can be labelled as the ‘consolidating territorial borders’, ‘internationalization of borders’, ‘cross-border-spaces and social practice’ and ‘borderings and motion’. These strata comprise of keywords that have emerged from wider geo-historical events, institutions and social practices, various interests of knowledge, as well as from different methodological and philosophical backgrounds in academic research. Such strata do not just neatly follow each other but form a space of emergent, dominant and residual keywords characterized by complex, chiasmatic relations. The major transformation in this evolution is the change from fixed borders mobilized in the consolidation of state territories to the increasingly close connection between relational borders and (human) mobilities.

James D. Sidaway (Political Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore)

East Asia's "securityscapes": a grounded geopolitical economy

Amongst the most important aspects of America’s national security system, beyond its surveillance capacity or geopolitical role that garner most critique (Greenwald 2014), are its geoeconomic impacts in respect of strategic electronic innovation—the recipient of federal largesse that has enabled the U.S.’s techno-capitalist edge in IT. Linda Weiss' (2014) account of "America Inc? Innovation and Enterprise in the National Security State" indicates how the intimate connections between the U.S. national security system, surveillance, and techno-industrial innovation lends the system a creative dynamic, albeit one that rests on enormous destructive capacity. Subsequent accounts of GPS and the "Transformation of Territory" (William Rankin, 2016) aligned with "Surveillance Capitalism" (Shoshana Zuboff, 2019) have catalysed further debates.

How have East Asia’s “securityscapes” been enfolded in this story of American ascendancy and imperium? In turn, how is this challenged by China’s visions of “national security”? Grounding these questions, the paper focuses on intersecting “securityscapes” in Phnom Penh. It investigates these intersections as symptomatic of circulation/operation of money/state/order in Cambodia's capital city.

Chih-Ming Wang (Cultural Studies, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

Post/colonial geography, post/Cold War complication: Okinawa, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as Liminal Island Chain

This talk begins with remembering the movement in Taiwan and Hong Kong to protect the liminal islands between Okinawa, Taiwan, and China called Diaoyutai in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese in the 1970s. Like the South China Sea dispute, the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands are one of the most controversial liminal spaces today that locks in the secrets of geopolitical economy and national sovereignty. Remembering the controversy and the activism around it provides us with a unqiue perspective into the making of post/colonial geography and post/Cold War complications. While the Diaoyutai/Senkaku islands are now often framed as a territorial dispute between Japan and China, the history of activism around them articulates a “liminal island chain” as the frontline of democracy that links Okinawa, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, all of which are victims of colonialism and the Wesphalia system that are now shaking towards uncertain futures. Taking the liminal islands as zones of indecisive sovereignty, border economy, and policed spaces that while suppressed by nationalism and colonialism have the potential for transforming the Westphalian imagination, this talk addresses how Okinawa, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, despite their obvious differences, when put together, may generate a set of debates on nationalism and colonialism in which liminality as both a metaphor and reality might offer an alternative vision of geopolitical economy. At a time when nationalism loses its appeal as a unifier, and nativism aligns with populism, it may be time to reflect on the geographical imaginations of islands and their relationship to one another.

Ibrahim Amir (Kurdish exile playwright, Austria)

Borders and play-writing

I was born to a Kurdish family in Aleppo, Syria in 1984. I studied theater and media arts in a university in Aleppo, but after three semesters I was expelled because of my engagement in a Kurdish student organization. In 2002, I moved to Vienna, where I studied medicine and now works as a doctor. When I studied, I began to write in German.

I may see the world a little differently. I had an experience with borders when I was young enough. The borders were there in Syria where I was not allowed to speak my language. That was a limit for me, like any other border that is involuntarily inflicted upon us. One is forced to face borders.

As a Kurd, I felt this limit with bitterness --- at home, on the street and at school. Therefore, I am absolutely against borders, both on the map and in people's minds, because they have forced us. And in Austria it was not easier. Then I learned the boundaries again and with a different face --- the appearance, the pronunciation, the direction and the value. All this brings me back to my homelessness.

I let my characters feel in my pieces. They probably hate me for it, and at the same time, they are a little thankful to me for the agreements and the contradictions that I give them. I can only hope. I did not choose the search for roots or location. Borders have always been there and inevitably find their way into my pieces.