Border(ing)s. A Border-Studies Perspective Bringing Migration Studies and Border Studies into a Fruitful Dialogue

Abstract

In both migration studies and border studies, borders are often unquestioned and taken for granted. Increasingly, however, borders are seen as resulting from or resulting in processes and ‘performing’ as powerful agents. Therefore, in this paper, I discuss the border – or, more precisely, the process of bordering – as a common object of research, breaking it down into two steps from a border-studies perspective. First, I approach border(ing)s from different angles relevant to migration studies in order to illustrate how borders can be thought of and understood processually. Using this approach as a basis, I then discuss the epistemological bordering turn and its further developments from a conceptual point of view and present selected approaches to border(ing)s. I then show that progressive border studies no longer assume borders to be marginal conditions of the research setting but rather places them at the center of interest as composite structures. In doing so, migration studies and border studies will not be played off against each other but rather brought into a fruitful dialogue.