Border Epistemologies

Abstract

Borders are key conceptual entities in postcolonial studies. They are never just there; they are never fully established or easily accessible. Borders are always manmade entities, even if, when we talk about territorial borders, they are sometimes supported by certain geographical features such as mountain ranges, forests, rivers or oceans. They are always constructions installed by people who wish to delineate an inside from an outside, self from other, locals from strangers, and who have the power to install and patrol such separations. More recent approaches in critical border studies have established that these delineations are hardly straightforward, either, but fraught with complexities which often undercut any logic of clear separation.