The Constitution and Contestability of Borders

This article introduces the special issue on the constitution and contestability of borders. Reflecting the processual turn in critical border studies, Yuval-Davis, Wemyss, and Cassidy (2019, 5) describe bordering as the set of practices and techniques that generate the forms of difference that enable distinctions between political subjects. Drawing on the concept of the borderscape, this special issue contributes to research within the field of border studies by examining how this social process of bordering is both co-produced and contested. This introduction describes the three main contributions of the Special Issue. First, our analysis draws attention to the ways in which bordering practices are co-constituted through interactions and negotiations between many different actors and institutions. Attention to co-constitution demonstrates how the borderscape produces differentiation through mundane, material practices, such as access to work, medical care, education, mobility, language, and bureaucratic encounters. Second, we emphasise how bordering practices are relational–appearing and operating differently on different people and in different contexts. Finally, by emphasising the processes of social and legal contestation that underlie bordering, we argue that the borderscape offers a uniquely valuable analytical tool to help us understand bordering as contingent, fragmented and containing multiple contradictions.