Paper short abstract:

The present-day political frontiers in North Africa and Near East often follow old provincial administrative boundaries, dating back to the late Ottoman period, and even before. In this concern, the cases of the Tunisian-Tripolitan and the Lebanese southern borderlands are quite interesting.

Paper long abstract:

In the state-making decisions that occurred after World War I, Ottoman administrative borders that had existed before were partly ignored. Despite this, the present-day political frontiers often follow traces of the old Ottoman provincial administrative boundaries. With respect to North Africa and Near East, the signs of that past are quite evident, as the cases of the Tunisian-Tripolitan and the Lebanese southern borderlands show. The borders created by colonial time treaties has still to deal with past practices rendered into modern.

1st Case Study (Tunisian-Tripolitan borderland 1880-1911)

Ottoman and French conflicting ideas of a borderland between Tunisia and Tripolitania gave birth to a controversial issue that was partially solved with a the treaty signed in Tripoli in 1910. In this present case I show how the Ottoman oldest borderland was transformed into a bordered land with consequences in the present.

2nd Case Study (Southern Lebanon)

The creation of the border which separated Lebanon from Palestine (Israel today) in the early 20s' of the past century marked the beginning of a slow but relentless transformation that affected both the borderland and its population. All the main actors involved in the regional geopolitics have repeatedly caused the borderline to fluctuate, reshaping every time the frontier region and its dynamics. Drawing on some relevant categories theorised in border studies, this second case seeks to illustrate the evolution which the Lebanese southern borderland underwent from the mandate period until the Israeli invasion in 1982, taking into account its post Ottoman implications.