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Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness

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Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318723866 Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness Article in Journal of Borderlands Studies · July 2017 DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2017.1344105 CITATIONS READS 0 45 4 authors, including: Giacomo Orsini Andrew Canessa Université Catholique de Louvain - UCLouvain University of Essex 23 PUBLICATIONS 12 CITATIONS 65 PUBLICATIONS 424 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Jennifer Josephine Ballantine Perera University of Gibraltar 5 PUBLICATIONS 3 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Bordering on Britishness. An oral history of 20th century Gibraltar View project Project 1. Just finished working on the ESRC funded project 'Bordering on Britishness: 20th century oral history of Gibraltar', with the University of Essex. Project 2. Currently working on the EU funded project 'The Encyclopaedia of Migrants' with partners in France, Spain and Portugal and Gibraltar. The lead institution is L'age de la tortue in Rennes, France. This is an ethnographic and an art project that gives migrants a platform and a voice. 3.ICE - Gibraltar with the University of Vigo and the University of the Balearic Islands. This project is concerned with adding to the copra of the English language outside the UK. View project All content following this page was uploaded by Giacomo Orsini on 31 August 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Journal of Borderlands Studies ISSN: 0886-5655 (Print) 2159-1229 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjbs20 Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness Giacomo Orsini, Andrew Canessa, Luis Gonzaga Martínez del Campo & Jennifer Ballantine Pereira To cite this article: Giacomo Orsini, Andrew Canessa, Luis Gonzaga Martínez del Campo & Jennifer Ballantine Pereira (2017): Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness, Journal of Borderlands Studies, DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2017.1344105 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2017.1344105 Published online: 27 Jul 2017. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 215 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjbs20 JOURNAL OF BORDERLANDS STUDIES, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2017.1344105 Fixed Lines, Permanent Transitions. International Borders, Cross-Border Communities and the Transforming Experience of Otherness Giacomo Orsinia, Andrew Canessaa, Luis Gonzaga Martínez del Campoa and Jennifer Ballantine Pereirab,c aDepartment of Sociology, University of Essex Colchester, UK; bGibraltar Garrison Library, 2 Library Ramp, Gibraltar (GI), UK; cInstitute for Gibraltar and Mediterranean Studies, University of Gibraltar, Europa Point Campus, Gibraltar (GI), UK ABSTRACT Beyond their most physical manifestations as fences, gates and border guards, international borders are social constructs experienced by individuals as they traverse them. Anchored on the ground as relatively fixed lines, international borders transform through time as the crossing is alternatively allowed or hindered depending on changing relations between countries. This is especially true given the social, cultural, and economic structures generated on either side of the border. In this article, we draw on three studies conducted since 2008: Melilla and Morocco, Lampedusa and Tunisia, Gibraltar and Spain. Looking at the recent history of local cross-border relations, this work analyzes how the tightening of previously porous borders altered existing sociocultural, economic and political relations on both sides of the frontier. As Lampedusa and Melilla became points on Europe’s external border, the almost osmotic cross-border relations previously experienced by locals diminished significantly: profound changes challenged their perception of identity and otherness. Similarly, throughout the 20th century, the Gibraltar/ Spain border operated both as a bridge across related communities, and as an almost insurmountable barrier when it was closed (1969–1982). This work explores the many ways in which borders transform local linguistic, cultural and economic constellations of neighboring “Others.” Introduction We are not worried by “them.” They are not even “them”: they are some of us … People here know Tunisians better than Italians. We are all the same people!1 International borders today are often perceived as a natural and universal constituent of the global social, political and cultural spaces we inhabit. As such, borders are frequently imagined as fixed, with pre-existing lines marking the separation of nation-states’ terri- tories. Nevertheless, international borders established over previously unseparated CONTACT Giacomo Orsini [email protected]; [email protected] Dr, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Office 6.322, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK © 2017 Association for Borderlands Studies 2 G. ORSINI ET AL. territories have a history—sometimes a very recent history; despite their relatively fixed spatiality, the working of borders has transformed dramatically through time (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013). Given this ambivalent nature—fixed and yet constantly changing—borders generate “otherness” by demarcating “the parameters within which identities are conceived, per- ceived, perpetuated and reshaped” (Newman 2003, 15). Ethnic and sociocultural bound- aries are thus closely related to the functioning of international borders. Created to organize the geographical and political space inhabited by people, international borders have ended up shaping our perceptions of the sociocultural space we inhabit. Consequently, the constant evolution of the functioning of border controls and checks directly transforms social life and does so even more profoundly in local cross-border communities. To explore the geographical fixity of borders together with their manage- ment, which we suggest generates social differentiation, this article concentrates on three significant and contested Mediterranean borderlands. They are all small commu- nities living some distance away from their corresponding “motherlands.” Yet, they are also communities whose neighbors are, according to contemporary discourse, profoundly “other” but were not so in the relatively recent past. They thus provide a heuristic tool to examine how international borders influence social life. The aim is to illustrate (a) how both the tightening and opening of borders play a role in changing the perceived identities and geographies of cross-border communities and, (b), how social proximity can be trans- formed into radical difference in a short space of time. Located on the southern periphery of Europe, the cases of the Italian island of Lampe- dusa, the Spanish exclave of Melilla, and the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar are here examined. Whilst Gibraltar is connected to a Spanish hinterland and Melilla to Morocco, Lampedusa is an island in the Mediterranean. Given their small size and their dependency on imports for supplies and resources, the dynamics informing cross- border interdependence are extremely visible in these examples. The absence of a national hinterland means that locals are compelled to engage with their nearest neighbors even if these are from another country. At the same time, social ties are often more intense and identities more sharply drawn when small communities exist alongside a much larger “foreign” country. However, as we shall see, the very foreignness of that country is attenu- ated when borders are easily traversed. There is thus a profound paradox whereby differ- ence can simultaneously be sharply drawn and blurred; borders are, after all, bridges as well as barriers. As such, our article both confirms and confounds Barth’s(1969) central thesis about border identities—as being more “intense” than those experienced, perceived and imagined by individuals and communities living at the “center” of a specific sociocultural and geographical unit. We focus on the relations between locals and their immediate geographical neighbors in Tunisia, Morocco and Spain, to unpack how the major transformations in border management during the last century led to the trans- formations of local cross-border sociocultural and ethnic fabrics. With the European integration of Spain and Italy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the previously porous national borders dividing Lampedusa from Tunisia and Melilla from Morocco were tightened as both the island and the exclave became points of the external border of the Schengen2 space of free movement of people. Similarly, the functioning of the land border dividing Gibraltar from Spain was drastically transformed over the second half of the last century: historically largely a permeable border, it was closed JOURNAL OF BORDERLANDS STUDIES 3 between 1969 and 1982, and even after the border opened there have been long periods where crossing has been difficult. Gibraltar, although an EU member, is nevertheless (with the UK) outside the Schengen area. Consequently, these somewhat contained border territories and communities represent unique case studies to examine the geographical relative fixity
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