Boundaries & Scale

Sergi

What is a boundary?

A geographical marker and maker of authority that separates territories categories and people.

Are boundaries only physical?

No boundaries are not necessarily physical they are also social symbolic discursive and experiential.

How do boundaries operate beyond territory?

They shape belonging acceptable behaviour identity and categories of the mind.

How are boundaries linked to power?

Boundaries express territorial authority and are used to control inclusion exclusion and access.

How do boundaries emerge?

Through conflict separation partition discourse and everyday practices.

Do boundaries disappear with globalisation?

No globalisation reconfigures boundaries making them more permeable but not absent.

What is meant by boundaries as processes?

Boundaries are unstable changing and continuously remade through practice and meaning.

How are boundaries constructed in discourse?

Through language symbols narratives maps and representations.

What role did empires play in boundary making?

Empires dictated territorial boundaries which later shaped postcolonial states.

What are boundaries between categories?

Conceptual divisions created through language classification and categorisation.

How does language create boundaries?

Naming and categorising bring things under control and make boundaries appear fixed.

What does Foucault say about categorisation?

Boundaries appear fixed through continuous classification and registration.

What is the Self and Other boundary?

A boundary that separates identity from difference shaping subjectivity and belonging.

What is the mirror stage?

A process where the self is formed through recognition and separation from others.

Are subjects stable or fixed?

No subjects are incomplete multiple and constantly changing.

What are subjects in transit?

Mobile shifting identities not fixed to place or category.

What are more-than-human boundaries?

Boundaries shaped by non-human actors objects and material forces.

What does Latour argue about action?

Action is produced by networks of human and non-human actants.

Are ethical boundaries stable?

No ethical boundaries are unstable contradictory and frequently crossed.

What is transgression in relation to boundaries?

Transgression is part of how boundaries are produced and maintained.

How are boundaries of the body defended?

Through ideas of cleanliness impurity and separation of us and them.

How are immigrants represented in boundary discourses?

As dirty threatening or out of place reinforcing symbolic boundaries.

What does in place out of place mean?

People crossing moral spatial or social norms provoke fear and exclusion.

What is a moral panic in boundary terms?

Anxiety caused by perceived boundary crossing of social norms.

What are boundaries of care?

Limits defining who we feel responsible for and how far care extends.

How far should we care?

Care is shaped by imaginative geographies not just physical distance.

Is care spatially limited?

No care is based on perceived closeness nearness and responsibility not geometry.

What is intimate care?

Care based on close personal relationships.

What is humanitarian care?

Abstract distant care for unknown others.

Does care have clear boundaries or scale?

No care responds to being called upon and has no fixed boundary or scale.

What are boundaries of language?

Limits created by representation naming and categorisation.

Why is representation problematic?

It creates false divisions between true and false us and them.

What is deconstruction?

An approach that shows meanings are unstable and boundaries are blurred.

How does deconstruction challenge boundaries?

By showing the excluded other is embedded within the primary identity.

What is meant by questioning boundaries?

Rejecting fixed categories and recognising hybridity and complexity.

What are wounded geographies?

Places marked by trauma violence insecurity and fear.

What is geographical scale?

A way of organising difference between kinds of places rather than just size.

Is scale natural?

No scale is socially produced and politically shaped.

How is scale linked to power?

Scale reflects and reproduces unequal power relations.

Are scales fixed and bounded?

No scales are fluid formed through practice and interaction.

What is scale as structure?

Scale as a platform where social and natural processes operate.

What is scale as agency?

Scale produced through political economic and social processes.

What is scale bending?

Challenging dominant scale arrangements by linking actions across scales.

What is the politics of scale?

Using scale to exert control define boundaries and link identities to places.

Can scale jump?

Yes actors can jump scales to gain power or influence.

How do poststructuralists view scale?

As socially constructed discursive fluid and contested.

What are flat ontologies?

Approaches that reject hierarchy and emphasise networks flows and relations.

How are scales produced?

Through relationships networks linkages and context.

Are scales fixed platforms?

No scales are relational flexible and moment-specific.

What does relational spatiality mean?

Spaces and scales are produced through connections and flows.

What is the scale of the body?

A scale highlighting embodiment social reproduction and lived experience.

What is the key conclusion about boundaries?

Boundaries are processes unstable experiential and open to challenge.

What is the key conclusion about scale?

Scale is fluid socially constructed and politically significant.