From one viewpoint, interstate borders are simple ‘artefacts on the ground’. Borders exist for a variety of practical reasons and can be classified according to the purposes they serve and how they serve them. They enable a whole host of important political, social, and economic activities. From a very different perspective, borders are artefacts of dominant discursive processes that have led to the fencing off of chunks of territory and people from one another. Such processes can change and as they (...) do, borders live on as residual phenomena that may still capture our imagination but no longer serve any essential purpose. Yet, what if, although still necessary for all sorts of reasons, borders are also inherently problematic? We need to change the way in which we think about borders to openly acknowledge their equivocal character. In other words, we need to see a border not as that which is either fixed or that as such must be overcome, but as an evolving construction that has both practical merits and demerits that must be constantly reweighed. Thinking about borders should be opened up to consider territorial spaces as ‘dwelling’ rather than national spaces and to see political responsibility for pursuit of a ‘decent life’ as extending beyond the borders of any particular state. Borders matter, then, both because they have real effects and because they trap thinking about and acting in the world in territorial terms. Keywords: borders, frontiers, decent life, dwelling, territory, heterotopia, globalization (Published online: 7 November 2008) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics. Vol. 1, No. 4, 2008, pp. 175-191. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v1i4.1892. (shrink)

This book offers geographical perspectives on the condition of the United States at the outset of the twenty-first century. It compares the American ideals of liberty, equality, individual opportunity, and social improvement with the contemporary condition of the regions, states and localities - the ideal American space with its reality as a place. It uses the public standard provided by the official ideology of the United States to see how well things are really going. The authors consider the contrast between (...) ideal and reality at local, state, and national levels in education, health, and welfare, in community, race, gender, and class relations, in economic and industrial development, and in the use and exploitation of America's landscape. Each chapter addresses the issues through evidence of long-term and recent trends, and grounds its arguments in information. American Space/American Place provides a series of compelling insights into the current condition of American society, its natural environment, and its place within the world. (shrink)

Broad in scope and edited by two massive names in geography, this is a critical exploration of how the field has emerged and fared over the course of its modern institutionalization.