GoingToMeet

Borders are among the most ubiquitous features of social life. They help to define who we are, shape our sense of the world, and contour our surroundings. Borders and boundary maintenance can serve both negative and positive goals, for example serving as both sites for the reproduction of, and resistance to, inequalities. On the one hand, creating and maintaining borders between nations, communities, and groups form the basis for some of the most violent conflicts historically and presently. Boundary-drawing processes are also at work in the construction of social problems, as distinctions are made between deviancy and normalcy, illegitimate and legitimate acts. Borders between academic disciplines are also policed and hotly contested. On the other hand,demands for the protection of the physical integrity of self, community, or nation include the goal of ensuring personal, social, and cultural freedoms. These appeals for the respect for borders include calls for the right to self-governance by native peoples, and the right to bodily integrity by feminist, transgender, intersexed, anti-violence, and anti-sexist activists.