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Accepted Paper:
Doing and undoing borders through social practices in a mid-sized city: a case study of Chambéry, France
helen klein
(Université Grenoble Alpes)
This study examines how borders are done in public space. Approached from a practice-theoretical perspective, I assume that borders are sth. that we do, rather than sth. that is only at the lime of a nation. Actors of the city’s borderscape are: local government, symbolic places, NGOs and citizens.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2017, ports and airports open to international traffic created a 10-kilometer rayon within which identity checks are legal, which includes many French metropoles and cities. Chambéry is one of them. This study examines how borders and boundaries interact in public space. I approach this question from a practice-theoretical perspective, assuming that borders are also something that we do, rather than only something that is on the limes of a national territory. Methodologically I follow a qualitative approach, drawing upon semi-structured interviews. Results show that borders are simultaneous done and undone in the cityscape. Whereas supra-national and national do borders on a rhetoric, juristic, geographic and administrative level, the local government and local NGOs, undo borders through local initiatives. But symbolic borders are also a constant part of the cityscape: they materialize from buildings to odonymia. Finally, doing borders in the cityscape differs between migrants and older adults. First, whereas migrants are confronted with geographical withdrawal, older adults engage actively within their environment, occupying space. Secondly, geographic migrants are confronted with emotional withdrawal due to the social practices of bordering they experience, done by the older adults. Concluding, approaching borders as something that we do, opens new ways of theoretical thought on empirical research within border studies. This research on borders within the cityscape shows how borders (political and territorial) and boundaries (symbolic and social borders) are a constituent part of one another.