Introduction: Borders and Border Crossings

Borders are commonly defined as lines that separate geographical areas which may take physical and concrete forms through prominent markers like walls, barbed-wire fences, customs checkpoint or lines on maps. As such, they appear as rigid, visibly dividing spaces, corresponding to the meaning of limes—a boundary that prevents any crossing. Borders also mark the limits of less visible places, pertaining to social, political, economic or cultural categories, and may thus be thought of as “a se...