Borders in a Borderless World

“Our understanding of territories and borders is less rigid and less deterministic than in the past. Territory and borders have their own internal dynamics causing change in their own right as much as they are simply the outcome of decision making. They are as much perceived in our mental maps and images as they are visible manifestations of concrete walls and iron fences.”

            This quote reminds me of a couple of key concepts that we talked about in class today. First is the concept of physical versus psychological borders. The idea of concrete walls and iron fences being borders is obvious, but what is not so obvious are the invisible borders that we create for ourselves and that others create for us. An example of this is the language barrier. I personally am terrified to try out the little bit of Italian that I do know, and am embarrassed when I, a foreigner, am spoken to in English by an Italian. I feel that I am in their country, therefore I should know their language, so this tends to make me more withdrawn and less into socializing with the locals. This is a psychological border that I have created for myself, and I hope that as I learn more Italian, I will become more comfortable practicing.

            I find the thought that “territory and borders have their own internal dynamics” interesting. Rarely do I devote any thought to borders, they are just there and they serve some sort of a purpose to keep people and things in or out. But something that I have come to realize is that borders tend to stem from conflict. If there were no conflict, there would be no need to separation, private property, or “my own space”. Boundaries are in place to protect a person’s physical possessions, their geographical space, and their emotional identity. A person has a home to live and store their belongings, a fence to keep people off their property, and interests and ideas that are similar to some but different than others. Borders allow people a unique identity, and although they can cause others to feel like outsiders, how safe would our world be if people were able to move completely freely throughout the world? How boring would it be if everywhere you went, you saw the same cultural groups and heard all the same languages? Borders allow for diversity, but they can also inhibit it as well. They are not drawn or decided haphazardly, but instead drawn with consideration (sometimes not careful but they arise spontaneously) to cultural groups and conflict.