‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

The Production of Space

Territories, boundaries and consciousness: the changing geographies of the Finnish-Russian border

The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography

A Companion to Political Geography

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

A renewed focus on the notion of empire has prompted an interest in questions of modern Japanese imperialism after the Meiji Restoration, both in Japan and abroad. It has also focused attention on the issue of comparing empires across Eurasia during the early modern period, under the rubric of ‘global history’. Japan has not really been incorporated into this latter discussion. This article begins by examining the reasons for this lack of incorporation, before moving on to discuss the value of considering early modern Japan as an imperial formation. The lens it adopts is one of cartography, that quintessentially imperial practice that has featured heavily in discussions of a Eurasian early modernity. The article examines the cartographic incorporation of Japan’s northern region of the Yezo into Japan itself, culminating in the area being newly designated as Hokkaido in the early Meiji period, the newest circuit within Imperial Japan’s administrative map. This political outcome was the result of varied practices that found reflection across the Tokugawa–Meiji divide. Yet this intense variety of practices, constantly shifting in response to contingency, served to form the state-effect, through which the land of Yezo was granted its unity and represented on the map. The territory on the map provided the visual, graphic representation of the demarcation of authority of the state that authorized the practice of its own mapping. In this manner, the state mapped itself into Hokkaido and from this perspective, the division between the early modern and modern eras is far less significant than is frequently assumed.

Imperial Practice and the making of modern Japan’s territory: Towards a reconsideration of Empire’s boundaries

This article utilizes an interdisciplinary border studies perspective in order to explain the absence of regional integration in Northeast Asia. While in other parts of the world, such as Europe or...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10225706.2021.1894189

Bordering and scaling Northeast Asia

The thesis examines how new patterns of cross-border cooperation (CBC) between Finland and Russia since 1990 have formed the conditions of possibility for a “civic neighborhood” spanning the border...

New Civic Neighborhood: Cross-border Cooperation and Civil Society Engagement at the Finnish-Russian Border

Since 2013, Russian Border Security Forces have been constructing border fences at various points along the Administrative Boundary Line that separates the de facto state of South Ossetia from the remainder of Georgian territory. This process of ‘borderization’ materializes what was formerly an administrative fiction on the ground, seeking to territorially demarcate the divide between the two communities. The fence in question has come to be referred to as the “Little Berlin Wall” inherently comparing some comparatively insubstantial stretches of fencing and barbed wire with the imposing concrete fortifications that served to divide East and West Berlin at the height of the Cold War. This article argues for the utility of the notion of a discursive construction in analysing this border. The notion will be used to clarify how this superficially unjustifiable comparison indicates that the Administrative Boundary Line is both shaped by and restructuring the regional geography of Europe. The invocation of the Berlin Wall emphasizes that this material fencing divides Georgia. The effects of its deployment are felt at various scales, from how this boundary is seen as an illegitimate division of sovereign Georgian territory, to its role in constructing Europe’s outer edge. The geographical and temporal division of Tbilisi-controlled Georgia from what lies on the other side of the “illegal” boundary works to incorporate Georgia firmly within Europe. This discursive construction at Europe’s outer edge also indicates both the importance of border processes occurring at the margins of a regional geographic entity and how the local, national and wider regional scales are able to be tied together within Europe’s post-Cold War borders. Georgia; South Ossetia; Borders; Europe; Scale; Discursive Construction Zusammenfassung Eine „kleine Berliner Mauer“ für alle: Maßstabübergreifende diskursive Konstruktion Seit 2013 haben russische Grenzsicherheitskräfte Grenzzäune an verschiedenen Punkten entlang der Verwaltungsgrenze errichtet, die den de-facto-Staat Südossetien vom Restgebiet von Georgien trennt. Dieser Prozess der Grenzziehung hatte zum Ziel, etwas Realität werden zu lassen, was zuvor räumlich und verwaltungsmäßig Fiktion war, indem man die Trennung zwischen zwei Gemeinden territorial abgrenzen wollte. Der infrage stehende Grenzzaun wird inzwischen als „kleine Berliner Mauer“ bezeichnet, indem man einige unwesentliche Zaunabschnitte und Stacheldraht mit den imposanten Betonfestungen vergleicht, die während des Höhepunkts des Kalten Krieges dazu dienten, Ostund Westberlin zu trennen. Dieser Artikel erörtert den Nutzwert der Vorstellung einer diskursiven Konstruktion, um uns zu ermöglichen, die Wirkung dieses vordergründig ungerechtfertigten Vergleichs zu untersuchen, wie es dazu kam, dass ABL durch die regionale Geographie von Europa sowohl geformt als auch umstrukturiert werden konnte. Die Verwendung des Begriffs einer „kleinen Berliner Mauer“ ist das Ergebnis sowohl der materiellen Abzäunung eines Teils des souveränen Staatsgebiets von Georgien, als auch der Rolle, die der Fall der Berliner Mauer im Verständnis von Europa in der Zeit nach dem kalten Krieg gespielt hat. Ähnlich werden dessen Auswirkungen in unterschiedlichen Maßstäben verspürt. Das beginnt damit, wie diese Grenze als rechtswidrige Abtrennung des souveränen Staatsgebiets von Georgien verstanden wird, über deren laufenden Ausbau als Außengrenze von Europa, was bezeichnend für die geographische und zeitliche Trennung des von Tiflis kontrollierten Georgiens von dem ist, was auf der anderen Seite dieser „illegalen“ Grenze liegt, bis hin zur festen Eingliederung von Georgien in Europa. Die bei dieser Verwendung der diskursiven Konstruktion sichtbaren Wirkungen auf die Außengrenze Europas weisen sowohl auf die Bedeutung der Grenzprozesse hin, die an den Rändern einer regionalen geographischen Einheit stattfinden, als auch auf die gleichzeitige Anwendung binärer Logik von Bewegung und Beständigkeit innerhalb der Grenzen Europas nach dem kalten Krieg. Georgien; Südossetien; Grenzen; Europa; Maßstab; Diskursive Konstruktion Edward Boyle: A “Little Berlin Wall” for all: discursive construction across scalesEdward Boyle: A „Little Berlin Wall“ for all: discursive construction across scales

A "Little Berlin Wall" for all: discursive contruction across scales

In this paper, we examine differences in how fragile borders are perceived by states and those resident along them. As the current policy of fencing indicates, India is conscious of the fragility of the Bangladesh border in Meghalaya. However, local markets on the border show residents able to mitigate its presence, not through ignoring its existence, but in dialogue with the state’s own agents.  Edward Boyle is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law, Kyushu University, Japan. He researches borders and border spaces in Japan, Georgia, and Northeast India, from the perspective of maps and representation, scalar governance, territoriality, infrastructures, memory and heritage, and history.

Edward Kieran Boyle

Papers

Imperial Practice and the making of modern Japan’s territory: Towards a reconsideration of Empire’s boundaries

Bordering and scaling Northeast Asia

New Civic Neighborhood: Cross-border Cooperation and Civil Society Engagement at the Finnish-Russian Border

A "Little Berlin Wall" for all: discursive contruction across scales

Informal Markets and Fuzzy Flows in Fragile Border Zones