Citizens and borderwork
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 03:03PM Borderwork: citizen empowerment through bordering - a project supported by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation.
Researchers: Chris Rumford (Principle Investigator) and Anthony Cooper (Research Assistant).
Borders have been studied extensively of late, particularly in relation to the state control of immigration, and securitization post- 9/11, where emphasis is given to the ways in which borders are increasingly dispersed throughout society: at airports, along motorways, in internet cafes, at railway stations. Such bordering practises are normally associated with the state and the extent to which ordinary people can construct, shift, and dismantle borders is not acknowledged. The research will explore this neglected dimension of border studies, what we term ‘borderwork’: the ability of citizens to participate in the making of borders, and the empowerment that can result from this bordering activity. To this end, the project will map the extent of borderwork in the UK. In particular, the borderwork inspired by nationalism (e.g. recent attempts to reborder Berwick-upon-Tweed) and the ‘politics of everyday fear’ (gated communities, ‘no cold-calling zones’ and ‘citizen detectives’), new opportunities for bordering provided by transnational networks (e.g. the Cittaslow movement), and the efforts of NGOs (e.g. ‘Brides Without Borders’) to ameliorate borders.
http://borderwork.wordpress.com/