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Borderless Worlds for Whom?

The optimism heralded by the end of the Cold War and the idea of an emerging borderless
world was soon shadowed by conflicts, wars, terrorism, and new border walls. Migrants,
asylum seekers, and refugees have simultaneously become key political figures. Border and
mobility studies are now two sides of the same coin.
The chapters of this volume reflect the changing relations between borders, bordering
practices, and mobilities. They provide both theoretical insights and contextual knowledge
on how borders, bordering practices, and ethical issues come together in mobilities. The
chapters scrutinize how bounded (territorial) and open/networked (relational) spaces man-
ifest in various contexts. The first section, ‘Borders in a borderless world’, raises theoretical
questions. The second, ‘Politics of inclusion and exclusion’, looks at bordering practices in
the context of migration. The third section, ‘Contested mobilities and encounters’, focuses
on tourism, which has been an ‘accepted’ form of mobility but which has recently become
an object of critique because of overtourism. Section four, ‘Borders, security, politics’,
examines bordering practices and security in the EU and beyond, highlighting how the
migration/border politics nexus has become a national and supra-national political
challenge.
The chapters of this interdisciplinary volume contribute both conceptually and empiri-
cally to understanding contemporary bordering practices and mobilities. It is essential
reading for geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and international relations
scholars interested in the contemporary meanings of borders and mobilities.

Anssi Paasi is Professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and the
Director of the RELATE Center of Excellence (Academy of Finland).

Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola is Senior Research Fellow at the Geography Research Unit,

University of Oulu, Finland, and a Docent in Human Geography and Border Studies at
the University of Eastern Finland.

Jarkko Saarinen is Professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and

Distinguished Visiting Professor (Sustainability Management) at the University of Johan-
nesburg, South Africa.

Kaj Zimmerbauer is Docent at the University of Oulu, Finland, and Scientific Coordi-
nator in the RELATE Center of Excellence (Academy of Finland).
Border Regions Series
Series Editor: Doris Wastl-Walter, University of Bern, Switzerland

In recent years, borders have taken on an immense significance. Throughout the

world they have shifted, been constructed and dismantled, and become physical
barriers between socio-political ideologies. They may separate societies with
very different cultures, histories, national identities or economic power, or
divide people of the same ethnic or cultural identity.
As manifestations of some of the world’s key political, economic, societal and
cultural issues, borders and border regions have received much academic atten-
tion over the past decade. This valuable series publishes high-quality research
monographs and edited comparative volumes that deal with all aspects of border
regions, both empirically and theoretically. It will appeal to scholars interested in
border regions and geopolitical issues across the whole range of social sciences.

The Politics of Good Neighbourhood

State, Civil Society and the Enhancement of Cultural Capital in
East Central Europe
Béla Filep

European Borderlands
Living with Barriers and Bridges
Edited by Elisabeth Boesen and Gregor Schnuer

Ethnicity, Gender and the Border Economy

Living in the Turkey–Georgia Borderlands
Latife Akyüz

Community, Change and Border Towns

H. Pınar Şenoğuz

Borderless Worlds for Whom?

Ethics, Moralities and Mobilities
Edited by Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, Jarkko Saarinen and
Kaj Zimmerbauer

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/geography/

series/ASHSER-1224
Borderless Worlds for Whom?
Ethics, Moralities and Mobilities

Edited by Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa

Prokkola, Jarkko Saarinen and
Kaj Zimmerbauer
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.
© 2019 selection and editorial matter, Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola,
Jarkko Saarinen and Kaj Zimmerbauer; individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, Jarkko Saarinen and Kaj
Zimmerbauer to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and
of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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A catalog record has been requested for this book.
ISBN: 978-0-815-36002-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-42781-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
Contents

List of illustrations viii

List of contributors ix
Preface xv

1 Introduction: borders, ethics, and mobilities 1

ANSSI PAASI, EEVA-KAISA PROKKOLA, JARKKO SAARINEN, AND KAJ ZIMMERBAUER

PART I
Borders in a borderless world 19

2 Borderless worlds and beyond: challenging the state-centric

cartographies 21
ANSSI PAASI

3 Imagining a borderless world 37

HARALD BAUDER

4 Borders, distance, politics 49

PAOLO NOVAK

PART II
Politics of inclusion and exclusion 63

5 ‘Borderless’ Europe and Brexit: young European migrant accounts of

media uses and moralities 65
AIJA LULLE

6 Everyday bordering, healthcare, and the politics of belonging in

contemporary Britain 78
KATHRYN CASSIDY
vi Contents
7 ‘Delay and neglect’: the everyday geopolitics of humanitarian
borders 93
ELISA PASCUCCI, JOUNI HÄKLI, AND KIRSI PAULIINA KALLIO

8 Asylum reception and the politicization of national identity in Finland:

a gender perspective 108
EEVA-KAISA PROKKOLA

PART III
Contested mobilities and encounters 121

9 Tourism, border politics, and the fault lines of mobility 123

RAOUL V. BIANCHI AND MARCUS L. STEPHENSON

10 Commodification of contested borderscapes for tourism development:

viability, community representation, and equity of relic Iron Curtain
and Sudetenland heritage tourism landscapes 139
ARIE STOFFELEN AND DOMINIQUE VANNESTE

11 Contested mobilities across the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border: the

case of Sheung Shui 154
J.J. ZHANG

PART IV
Borders, security, politics 167

12 Trade, Trump, security, and ethics: the Canada–US border in

continental perspective 169
HEATHER N. NICOL AND KAREN G. EVERETT

13 Ontological (in)security: the EU’s bordering dilemma and

neighbourhood 184
JUSSI P. LAINE AND JAMES W. SCOTT

14 An ethical code for cross-border governance: what does the European

Union say on the ethics of cross-border cooperation? 197
ELISABETTA NADALUTTI
 Contents vii
15 The role of ‘nature’ at the EU maritime borders: agency, ethics, and
accountability 212
ESTELA SCHINDEL

16 Afterword: borders are there to be crossed (but not by everybody) 224

NOEL B. SALAZAR

Index 230
Illustrations

Figures
8.1 A survey conducted in Tornio 116
10.1 The administrative delineation of German–Czech borderlands for
the period 1950–1990 with indication of the former Sudetenland 143
10.2 Impression of the German-German museum in Mödlareuth and
information panel in Mödlareuth on the previous border wall 146

Tables
2.1 Three perspectives on a ‘world without borders’ 31
14.1 Cross-border governance ethical code 202
Contributors

Harald Bauder is Professor of Geography & Environmental Studies and the

Director of the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies
(ISS) at Ryerson University, Canada. Prior to this position he was the inaugural
Academic Director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement
(RCIS). His research interests are in critical border, immigration, and settlement
geographies. Bauder’s new book Migration Borders Freedom (published by
Routledge) links open borders and no border concepts with critical perspectives
of migration, citizenship, and sanctuary. His past research includes projects on
the dialectics of migration and nationhood, migrant labour devaluation, the
mobility of academic researchers, as well as emerging geographies of citizenship,
borders and mobility. He is a former editor of ACME.
Raoul V. Bianchi is Reader/Associate Professor in International Tourism and
Development in the School of Business and Law, University of East London.
His work focuses on the political economy and politics of international
tourism with particular emphasis on southern Europe and the Mediterranean
region. Bianchi and Marcus L. Stephenson are the authors of Tourism and
Citizenship: Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities in the Global Order
(Routledge, 2014).
Kathryn Cassidy joined Northumbria University as a Senior Lecturer in Human
Geography in September 2013. She holds a PhD from the University of
Birmingham and worked as a Senior Research Fellow on the EU Borders-
capes project (2013–2016). As a feminist political geographer her research
interests relate to everyday bordering, intimacy-geopolitics and the everyday
carceralities of asylum. Based on work from work package 9 (Borders, Inter-
sectionality and the Everyday) of the EUBorderscapes, she has recently put
together special issues in Political Geography and Ethnic and Racial Studies
and a co-authored book, entitled Bordering, will be published with Polity Press in
2018. She is currently completing a monograph on Disciplining (Im)Mobilities,
based on her research in Ukraine, Romania and the UK.
Karen G. Everett is a PhD candidate in the School for the Study of Canada,
Frost Centre for Canadian Studies. The focus of her work is on Canada–US
x Contributors
border relations under the Beyond the Border Agreement, particularly in the
area of northern border management and security policy. Karen received her
MA from Ryerson University in Toronto and she has spent some time work-
ing in the area of government policy.
Jouni Häkli is Professor of Regional Studies and the leader of the Space and
Political Agency Research Group (SPARG) at the University of Tampere,
Finland. He is also the vice director of the Academy of Finland Centre of
Excellence RELATE. His research focuses on political agency, political
subjectivity, transnationalization, citizenship, and border studies. He has
recently published his work in the journals Geopolitics, International Political
Sociology, Progress in Human Geography, Global Networks, and Citizenship
Studies.
Kirsi Pauliina Kallio is Academy Fellow and Senior Researcher at the Uni-
versity of Tampere, Finland, and affiliated to the Academy of Finland Centre
of Excellence RELATE. Her research interests include political subjectivity
and agency, political geographies of childhood and youth, transnational
children’s rights, mundane forms of citizen participation, and the everyday
practice of democracy. She has published widely and edited many thematic
books and special issues with publishers such as Routledge, Taylor & Francis,
Springer, Elsevier, and Wiley.
Jussi P. Laine is Assistant Professor at the Karelian Institute of the University of
Eastern Finland. He also serves as the Executive Secretary and Treasurer of
the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) as well as in the Steering
Committee of the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) Commission on
Political Geography. His research interests include political geography, geo-
politics, and particularly border studies, within which he explores the multi-
scalar production of borders and seeks to better understand the actual and
potential role of civil society in developing new forms of political, economic,
and socio-cultural cooperation. His most recent publications have come out in
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, and International Studies
and Geopolitics.
Aija Lulle is Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Loughborough
University. She is a vocal migration scholar in media, providing commentaries
and analyses for wider audiences. She was a founder-director of the Centre for
Diaspora and Migration Research, University of Latvia (2014–2015) and
academic advisor on diaspora policy to the Latvian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (2013–2014). She is a Latvian expert on migration at the OECD, and
she acted as an expert for the UNESCO MOST programme on migration and
development (in 2016). Lulle has extensive fieldwork experience in the UK,
Nordic, and Baltic countries. Most recently Lulle studied youth mobilities in
the UK in the H2020 project YMOBILITY (Youth Mobility: Maximising
Opportunities for Individuals, Labour Markets and Regions). Her works have
been published in, among others, Population, Space and Place, Journal of
 Contributors xi
Ethnic and Migration Studies, Geografiska Annaler B Series, Women’s Studies
International Forum, and Comparative Migration Studies.
Elisabetta Nadalutti is Junior Fellow Marie S. Curie FCFP at the Freiburg
Institute for Advanced Studies – FRIAS (Albert-Ludwig-Universität Freiburg).
She has studied political integration, European politics, governance, and citizen
participation at the University of Bath where she obtained her PhD. Subse-
quently she was awarded an Erasmus Mundus post-doctoral scholarship and she
became a researcher at the Centre for European Studies, at ANU (Canberra) and
started a comparative research between different models of regionalism and
integration in the EU and ASEAN. She has been a visiting researcher at
UNU-CRIS in Brugge (Belgium) and a Marie Curie and Fonds National de la
Recherce Luxembourg Post-doctoral Research Fellow, at the Université du
Luxembourg. She is presently working on the theoretical elaboration of an
ethical code of cross-border governance in order to better understand the ethical
dimension of cross-border cooperation within the European Union.
Heather N. Nicol is Professor of Geography in the School for the Environment at
Trent University, Canada. Her research interests are in the Canada–US relation-
ship and the borders that mediate it. She is also interested in regional integration
and geopolitics, indigenous self-governance, and the importance of sustainable
development goals in the human security of the north. She has published with
Victor Konrad a book, Beyond Walls: Re-inventing the Canada-United States
Borderlands.
Paolo Novak is Lecturer in Development Studies at SOAS, University of
London. His research is concerned with the mutually constitutive relation
between borders, migration and development, and is located at the intersection
of critical globalization, migration and development literature. His publica-
tions engage with diverse disciplinary debates, and he has published in such
journals as Geopolitics, Critical Sociology, Transnational Legal Theory,
Development in Practice, and the Journal of Refugee Studies.
Anssi Paasi is Professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and
the Director of the RELATE Center of Excellence (Academy of Finland). He
has much experience in theorizing and studying empirically regions/territories,
borders and spatial identities and he has published widely in geographical, IR
and sociological journals. He is a former coeditor of Progress in Human
Geography and he serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals. His
books include: Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness: The Changing
Geographies of the Finnish-Russian Border (Wiley, 1996) and coedited
volumes Handbook of Human Geography I-II (Sage, 2014), Regional
Worlds: Advancing the Geography of Regions (Routledge, 2017), and the
Handbook on the Geography of Regions and Territories (Elgar, 2018).
Elisa Pascucci is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at the
University of Tampere, Finland, affiliated to the RELATE CoE. Her research
xii Contributors
focuses on the materialities and spatialities of humanitarian aid and migrant
and refugee political agency, including practices of transnational citizenship
and collective mobilization and protests. She has recently started a project on
humanitarian economies and humanitarian innovation in responses to the
Syrian refugee crisis, funded by the Academy of Finland. She has a PhD in
Human Geography (University of Sussex, UK, 2014), and a degree in Middle
Eastern Studies (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, 2005). Her research
has been published in, among others, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees,
Area and Territory Politics and Governance.
Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola is Senior Research Fellow at the Geography Research
Unit, University of Oulu, Finland, and a Docent in Human Geography and
Border Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. She works currently in
the wide research consortium, Multilayered Borders of Global Security
(GLASE). She has published widely on borders, border management, tourism,
and spatial identity with a particular focus on the EU and Schengen borders.
Her articles have been published in journals such as Tourism Geographies,
Antipode, Social and Cultural Geography, Environment and Planning A,
Geopolitics, and Citizenship Studies.
Jarkko Saarinen is Professor of Geography in the University of Oulu, Finland,
and Distinguished Visiting Professor (Sustainability Management) at the
University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include
development and tourism, sustainability and responsibility in tourism, tour-
ism–community relations, political ecology, and wilderness studies. He has
published widely on these themes.
Noel B. Salazar is Research Professor in Anthropology at the University of
Leuven, Belgium. He is the editor of the Worlds in Motion (Berghahn) and
Anthropology of Tourism (Lexington) book series, coeditor of Methodologies
of Mobility (2017), Keywords of Mobility (2016), Regimes of Mobility (2014)
and Tourism Imaginaries (2014), and author of Momentous Mobilities (2018),
Envisioning Eden (2010) and numerous peer-reviewed articles and book
chapters on mobility and travel. Salazar is Secretary-General of the Interna-
tional Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences and founder of the
EASA Anthropology and Mobility Network (AnthroMob).
Estela Schindel studied Communications at the University of Buenos Aires and
obtained her PhD in Sociology at the Free University Berlin. She serves
currently as a scientific coordinator within the PhD programme ‘Europe in the
globalized world’ and a researcher at the Center of Excellence Cultural
Foundations of Social Integration, in the University of Konstanz. Her current
project focuses on the imbrications of technology, violence, and nature in the
EU border regime. She has coedited the volume Space and the Memories of
Violence. Landscapes of Erasure, Disappearance and Exception (Palgrave,
2014). Her recent articles have been published in Journal of Borderlands
Studies and Mobile Culture Studies: The Journal.
 Contributors xiii
James W. Scott is Professor of Regional and Border Studies in the Karelian
Institute at the University of Eastern Finland. Scott obtained his Habilitation
(2006), PhD (1990) and MA (1986) at the Free University of Berlin and his
BSc at the University of California, Berkeley (1979). His research interests
and numerous publications cover urban and regional development policy,
geopolitics, border studies, transboundary regionalism in Europe and North
America, changes, and the spatial implications of Eastern and Central Eur-
opean transformation processes. Recently, he coordinated European research
projects on borders and cross-border cooperation within the EU’s Fifth, Sixth
and Seventh Framework Programmes.
Marcus L. Stephenson is Professor of Tourism and Hospitality Management,
and Dean of the School of Hospitality at Sunway University (Malaysia). He
has published extensively on the sociology of tourism, especially concerning
nationality, race, ethnicity, culture, and religion. He is coeditor of Interna-
tional Tourism Development and the Gulf Cooperation Council States: Chal-
lenges and Opportunities (Routledge, 2017).
Arie Stoffelen is Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen (Nether-
lands). He is also coordinator of the Master of Cultural Geography and the
Tourism Geography and Planning track at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the
University of Groningen. His main research interest focus on understanding
structural delivery mechanisms for tourism-induced region-building and, by
extension, regional development in the contexts of rural European borderlands.
Correspondingly, he analyses the interactions between tourism landscape com-
modification, bordering processes, and regional development. Recent publica-
tions have come out in Annals of Tourism Research, Current Issues in Tourism,
European Planning Studies, Tourism Geographies, Journal of Destination
Marketing and Management, Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism,
and Journal of Ecotourism.
Dominique Vanneste is Associate Professor at the Division of Geography and
Tourism at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium). Her research
focuses on regional and destination development and (cultural) heritage with
an emphasis on identity building and preservation. She works on tourism
networks and the role of brokers, as well as on heritage tourism as a lever for
development. Further, she studies the relationship between war heritage and
tourism from a memoryscape perspective. Recent publications have been
published in Tourism Management Perspectives, International Journal of
Cultural Property, and Development Southern Africa.
J.J. Zhang is Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. He obtained his PhD in the field of cultural geography
from the University of Durham, UK. Before going to Durham, he completed his
M.Soc.Sci in Geography at the National University of Singapore. He also holds
a B.Soc.Sci. (First Class Honours) in Geography from the same university. His
research interests lie in the intersection of border studies, material culture, and
xiv Contributors
tourism. His writings on the cultural-geopolitics of cross-border mobilities
and material cultures of memory and identity have been published in
international journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Cultural Geo-
graphies, Geoforum, Tourism Management, and Tourism Geographies.
Kaj Zimmerbauer is Scientific Coordinator in the RELATE Center of Excellence
(Academy of Finland) at Oulu University. His research topics include supra-
nationalism and supra-national region-building, regional/territorial (resistance)
identities, and territory–network interplay. His most recent publications discuss
the deconstruction of borders and manifestations of identities in territorial
mergers, and conceptualization and understanding of supra-national identities
in planning. He has done extensive research on the Barents region in northern-
most Europe, focusing on both geopolitics and geo-economics in cross-border
regionalization processes. He has published, for example, in Regional Studies,
Geoforum, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Studies.
Preface

Borders and border regions have been popular subjects and contexts in academic
research, particularly in political geography, since the beginning of the 20th
century. Borders, but also bordering practices, became particularly notable inter-
disciplinary topics during the 1990s, a period that also witnessed the rise of the
borderless world thesis which echoed globalization and optimistic, neoliberal
beliefs on the positive effects of expanding global markets. Shortly thereafter, a
number of dramatic events led to the rapid politicization of border issues.
Particularly critical were the terrorist attacks in the US on 9/11, and later in
Europe and elsewhere. These events resulted in massive deliberations on security
issues and concomitant investments in practices and technologies related to
security, securitization, and border controls. These events also gradually gave
rise to wars and conflicts, migrants, refuges and asylum seekers, (right wing)
nationalism and racism, and to debates on the nature of citizenship. All these
themes show that the current political significance of borders can be ascribed to
the fact that borders and bordering practices are mirror images of various forms
of human mobility. Today, borders and mobilities are viewed as two sides of the
same coin in both academic research and politics, as well as in social movements
such as ‘open borders’ or ‘no borders’, which increasingly combine these two
realms. In conjunction with these developments, borders and border crossings
have become ever more burning political issues around the world.
The editors of this book have a long experience of working with research
related to borders, border crossings, and the control of such crossings in various
forms of mobilities. Borders are critical elements in the debates that challenge
the understanding/view of the world as a continuum of horizontally adjacent
territorial spaces. This view has been challenged by relational approaches that
perceive the world as a dynamic constellation of various forms of spatialities that
are constituted in and through complex social relations. This understanding also
challenges the essentialist views of national, state-based identities and subjectiv-
ities, and of borders themselves. Today ever more often scholars speak about the
relational and topologically connected spaces in which we live and move.
The preparation of this book has been possible due to the generous support of
several funding organizations. Anssi Paasi, Jarkko Saarinen, and Kaj Zimmerbauer
wish to thank the Academy of Finland and the University of Oulu for funding the
xvi Preface
RELATE Center of Excellence (Relational and Territorial Politics of Bordering,
Identities and Transnationalization, project number #307348). Anssi Paasi and
Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola also wish to thank the Academy of Finland’s Strategic
Research Council for financing the GLASE project, which has focused on borders
and security issues (project number #303527). The editors extend their sincere
thanks to all the authors for contributing to the book and for their careful responses
to the requests and queries raised during the review process. We are also grateful
to Routledge for accepting the book to their Border Regions series and for all the
help provided by the publishing house. Particular thanks are due to Ms Ruth
Anderson from Routledge for supporting editorial work and reminding us about
deadlines! The editors also wish to thank Ms Ina Hourula for her careful work in
formulating the final manuscript for the publisher.
Oulu, Finland, 9 August 2018
Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, Jarkko Saarinen and Kaj Zimmerbauer
1 Introduction
Borders, ethics, and mobilities
Anssi Paasi, Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola, Jarkko Saarinen,
and Kaj Zimmerbauer

Introduction
‘Borderless world’, a catch phrase promoted by Ohmae (1989; 1990; 1995),
became highly attractive in border studies in the 1990s. Borders and political
cartographies that ‘trapped’ nation-states were, for Ohmae, elements that hin-
dered progress, economic growth, and cooperation in the globalizing market.
Even though this idea resonated, especially with the global business economy,
Ohmae also saw the borderless world – a geography without borders – as a
geopolitical ideal and a valuable model for post-Cold War era politicians and
military leaders. He suggested that open cartographies and the ‘opening’ of
nation-states would benefit both the global economy and markets. Such carto-
graphies would challenge the dominant state-centric political territories that
governments routinely mobilize to control citizens.
Supported by Castells’ (1996) ideas of network society, Ohmae’s slogan took
on a life of its own after his manifesto. Currently, the idea of a borderless world
is associated with many kinds of social issues and contexts (Paasi, 2019). For
some, the idea represents the worst kind of idealism or naïve cosmopolitanism.
However, for a number of scholars and activists the notion of ‘open borders’ or
‘no borders’ is increasingly significant, and they push the goals of freedom of
movement and a borderless world much further than Ohmae suggested. Radical
researchers fervently argue and struggle for a freedom of movement on political
as well as economic grounds, but they also emphasize the importance of human
rights, morals and ethics.
The title of this collection and introduction poses a critical question: for whom –
beyond economic flows – is or can the world be borderless? Although challenging
to answer in practice, this question is justified since it forces us to confront how
borders and territorial spaces are organized to control mobilities – how they have
become historically materialized and achieved specific meanings, and how
bounded spaces transform over possibly discernible time-horizons.
Border studies has been a well-established research field for a long time, but a
simultaneous expansion and a sort of fragmentation of this research area has
occurred since the 1990s (Newman and Paasi, 1998; Johnson et al., 2011; Wastl-
Walter, 2011; Burridge et al., 2017; Novak, 2019). It has become clear during the
2 Anssi Paasi et al.
last two decades or so that the significance of borders is, to a greater extent than
before, rooted in the relations between borders, bordering practices, and mobi-
lities. Such relations are multifaceted and in constant flux. Borders are not
merely lines that divide state spaces from each other. Instead, they are increas-
ingly complex technical and ideological processes and institutions that states
mobilize to control all kind of flows, not least of all mobile people. Mobile people,
for their part, are extremely heterogeneous; they can be explorers, tourists, interna-
tional students, highly educated specialists, guest workers, forced labour, regular and
irregular migrants, asylum seekers searching for refuge, heads of states and govern-
ments, spies and diplomats, soldiers, professional athletes, traders, terrorists, and so
on (Bulley, 2017, p. 3). Furthermore, their statuses are often differentiated by
nationality, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, linguistic capacities, and others.
As Bulley (2017) shows, the questions of hospitability/hostility and hosts/
guests touch upon many kinds of mobile human beings that can have various
kinds of subjectivities, roles, and identities, even simultaneously. Whereas busi-
ness people, elite travellers, and prosperous tourists, for example, cross relatively
soft borders regularly without difficulties, migrants and particularly asylum
seekers often face the hard side of borders and bordering practices. Instead of
hospitality, they frequently face hostility, prejudice, racism, and xenophobia,
phenomena that seem to be the order of the day in many states around the
world. Suspiciousness towards mobile people has reached a new level in the
wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US and the later strikes in Europe. As a
result, regressive, nationalistically toned political cartographies have emerged in
the US, and in many European Union member states, such as Poland and
Hungary, governing nationalistic parties have pushed for stricter migration
control. In addition, in the United Kingdom nationalistic voices and purported
needs to restrict and control human mobilities have characterized the Brexit
process.
Tensions between various forms of mobilities and their relations to borders are
the key focus in this edited book. In a situation where every year thousands of
asylum seekers and migrants drown in the Mediterranean and Pacific or die
trying to cross hot, dry deserts, we are forced to reconsider borders and their
relations to social and ethical practices and social justice. Ethical issues also
emerge from technological developments. The deployment of big data and the
introduction of new border surveillance technologies, through which even the
biological features and affective expressions of mobile individuals become
objects of suspicion, poses fundamental ethical questions regarding human
rights, privacy and identity, and the development of future societies in general
(Adey, 2009; Amoore and Hall, 2009; Longo, 2018).
We argue in this book that while borders and human mobilities are among the
most significant research themes across social sciences, the debate on the ethical
issues has not been as central in border research as it ought to be. One interesting
exception is the book edited by philosopher Allen Buchanan and political
scientist Margaret Moore (2003) in which the authors look at seven ethical
traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, natural law, Confucianism, liberalism,
 Introduction 3
and international law) in the making and unmaking of state and national
boundaries. The conclusion of the book is that since ethical theories are by their
very nature universal, they tend to be rather suspicious of borders. Especially
liberalism’s emphasis on equal freedom seems to apply to everyone, not merely
the citizens of liberal democracies. Geographers Diener and Hagen (2009) note
briefly the significance of ethics in their critique of the borderless world thesis.
More recently, Espejo (2018) has addressed the moral significance of territorial
borders and suggests that the prevailing view among liberal thinkers is that from
a moral perspective borders are arbitrary and that borders matter because they
differentiate politics on the basis of territorial jurisdictions. Hence state borders
are morally relevant and are important because ‘they demarcate places juridi-
cally, and because they sustain place-specific rights and duties’ (p. 73). She also
makes a useful distinction between the boundaries of belonging and territorial
borders. The former mark identitarian memberships, the latter the territorial
bounds of legal jurisdictions – a divide that resonates with the current division
between migration and border research.
Migration scholars have paid considerable attention to ethical questions and
these are becoming ever more significant alongside increasing levels of migration
(see for example, Hayter, 2000; Pevnick, 2011; Wellman and Cole, 2011; Carens,
2013; Sager, 2016; Bulley, 2017). The growing numbers of migrants echoe
complex social and environmental problems, wars and conflicts, natural disasters
(droughts, floods), famines, daily amenities, and livelihoods, and also reflect a
search for better possibilities in life in the face of often miserable conditions. One
additional background factor is population growth, which in many states, espe-
cially when combined with conflicts, environmental change, and lack of food,
pushes people to migrate across dangerous routes. The lottery of birth seems to
determine very profoundly the future life possibilities of human beings. Migration
scholars of course also discuss borders, but this rarely seems to be a key
theoretical concern or motivation (see the summary by Burridge et al., 2017).
For them, borders are usually seen as obstacles embedded in social practices that
protect privileges and as instruments that maintain the status quo. Compared to
border research, however, migration studies tend to recognize the gendered and
intersectional nature of lived mobilities, and how border crossing is an effort that
is often dangerous for women and children, for example (Andrijasevic, 2010;
Choi, 2011).

Borders persevere
Thus in spite of the increased mobilities of the globalized world economy,
borders are not disappearing and we are still far away from a borderless world.
Obviously, borders do fluctuate and transform, at times hardening, at times
softening. Currently, border dynamics are in many cases moving towards a
hardening of borders, reflecting the unsecure and unstable global geopolitical
and geo-economic situation and increasing distrust between key political leaders.
It seems we are witnessing the return of power politics and a strengthening of the
4 Anssi Paasi et al.
‘spheres of interest’ thinking in international politics. Although many economic
regulations have been removed to boost ‘free’ trade, simultaneously more than a
few borders have gained more significance and there has been an unforeseen
global tendency to build physical walls on borders between states, often to
prevent human mobility (Jones, 2016). Very recently efforts to curtail free trade
have also emerged (Nicol and Everett, 2019). Current geopolitical tensions
between the EU and Russia, for instance, have again raised borders between the
‘East’ and ‘West’. A good example of this is Barents cooperation in northern-
most Europe, where some advocates are concerned that the cooperation might
founder or come to an end because of the new, tense political situation
(Zimmerbauer, 2018). Yet, while cultural and economic cooperation has in
many ways stagnated, post-9/11 security thinking has intensified cooperation in
the field of border security, where states are increasingly cooperating with non-
national and non-sovereign actors. This has complicated our understanding of
borders and bordering, and of where border enforcement actually takes place in
space and time, and by whom (Longo, 2018).
Likewise, the borders between Europe and the African continent as well as
between the US and Mexico have gained massive attention, not so much as
‘borders’ but as immense fluctuating systems of control and ‘bordering’. The
former has become a fuzzy, mobile border that is a graveyard for thousands of
immigrants attempting Europe for various reasons related to security, environ-
ment, and/or economy. Even nature itself has been put to work in the
Mediterranean to create a deterrence and to stop migrants (Schindel, 2019),
with the effect that such arrangements blur the boundaries of responsibility in
the case of border-related deaths. Efforts to move this border far away from the
concrete European state borders and to outsource bordering have been styled as
‘humanitarian borders’ (see Pascucci et al., 2019) in the guise of ‘humanitarian
bordering’. Also, the US government has mobilized new ideological dividing
lines, most recently manifested in President Trump’s plans to build a concrete
wall between the US and Mexico. The wall debate is ideological in the sense
that much of this border is already walled and because the wall is used to
provoke images of threat, terrorism, crime, and illegality (Nicol and Everett,
2019). The construction of walls is also an example of the fusion of geopolitics
and geoeconomics in which populist politics and nationalism are effectively
mobilized. Fitting examples of such reterritorialized propensities are Trump’s
straightforwardly nationalist Twitter claims: ‘we need a strong border’. . .‘we
have no country if we have no border’. As noted above, such anti-migration
tendencies are also evident in various European states (such as Hungary,
Poland, France, the Netherlands, and the UK), showing that the state-centric
world map continues to provide an ideologically dominating, ‘ethically rele-
vant’ moral geography, a map that should be replaced by a more equitable map
that incorporates an ethic of respect for difference (Shapiro, 1994).
Migration scholars argue that borders actually produce migrants, yet simulta-
neously acknowledge that researchers need to be aware of ethical dilemmas and
of their own positioning. De Genova puts this plainly:
 Introduction 5
If there were no borders, there would be no migrants – only mobility.
Another way of saying the same would be that the elemental and elementary
freedom of movement of the human species necessarily posits a relation
between the species and the space of the planet, as a whole. From this
standpoint, territorially-defined ‘national’ states and their borders remain
enduringly and irreducibly problematic.
(De Genova, 2013, p. 253)

A historical perspective shows that the bordering of different groups of people is not
only a modern phenomenon. Borders in politics are both persistent and dynamic, as
an analysis of the borders in ancient Greek cities and the Roman Empire for example
displays (Longo, 2018). The analysis of the ‘no borders’ alternative, which is often
presented as a more ethical approach, needs to be broadened from the modern state
system to other political units and needs to question what potential there is for
political life without bordering effects in general. Open borders without an interna-
tional system of political protection and management is not necessarily a sustainable
scenario (Bauder, 2019). Accordingly, what if it is not borders per se that are the
main problem but the shifting neoliberal states that appear no longer to protect their
own citizens (Longo, 2018, p. 197)? Ultimately, the neoliberal open borders
economic policy has benefited only the global elite, whereas the number of people
who face expulsion from their professional livelihoods and from the very biospheres
that sustain their lives is continuously increasing (Sassen, 2014).
The earlier optimism associated with the ‘borderless world’ thesis has thus
faded for several reasons. Firstly, instead of seeing borders merely as lines dividing
(state) spaces, more nuanced views now prevail in academic debates, regarding
what borders actually are and what they do at and across various spatial scales in
their capacity to permit some and (selectively) restrict other forms of mobility,
sustain national(ist) landscapes and mobilize powerful memories. Secondly, many
border scholars suggest that the contextual and geohistorical features of specific
borders force scholars to approach borders in more sensitive and multifaceted
ways (Paasi, 1996; O’Dowd, 2010; Megoran, 2017). Thirdly, contrary to the
seamless borderless world ideal, humans live on an increasingly unevenly struc-
tured planet where borders are important, and where critical elements of biopoli-
tical control are carried out by states, which leads to ever more discriminating
regulation and control of migrants and refugees. Graham aptly reminds that

. . . states are becoming internationally organised systems geared towards

trying to separate people in circulations deemed risky or malign from those
deemed risk-free or worthy of protection. This process increasingly occurs
both inside and outside territorial boundaries between states, resulting in
blurring between international borders and urban/local borders.
(Graham, 2010, p. 89)

Previous tendencies have provided fuel for the open and no borders movements,
which are continuously struggling with the idea of a borderless world.
6 Anssi Paasi et al.
The multiplicity of mobilities and of ethical dilemmas: the question of
hospitability
Scholars in the fields of geography, international relations, and anthropology,
for example, have challenged state-centrism and methodological nationalism,
as well as the ‘self-evidence’ of national states. Similarly, in the context of
ethics, Bulley (2017, p. 3) argues that to approach the politics and possibilities
of international ethics we must look beyond the ‘statist imaginary’. Yet, he
notes, state-based international ethics continues to be important in responding,
through humanitarian interventions, to major catastrophes such as genocides,
ethnic cleansing, atrocities, and natural disasters. States as institutions are
therefore critical in such interventions. Bulley also contends (p. 4) that the
practices of hospitability involve not only the construction of ethical subjects
(hosts and guests) and their relations (identity/difference, welcome/refusal,
safety/threat), but also the production of spaces, a point made also in the
context of tourist strategies that generate cities, hotels, cafes, and leisure zones
as more or less welcoming. Hospitability for Bulley is the means by which
particular spaces are brought into being as ‘homes’, as embodying an ethos, a
way of being: an ethic.
The concept of hospitality is also germane to both migration and tourism.
Recently, the idea (and process) of overtourism has further challenged the
hospitality associated with touristic mobilities and also the idea of tourism as a
subjective (human) right. Similarly, as in refugee discourses, overtourism as a
crisis of tourism refers to a scale of human mobility, in that there are too many
visitors to a particular destination, such as Berlin, Barcelona, Venice, and
Reykjavik (cf. Dickinson, 2018). In addition to the simple volume of tourists,
however, the characteristics and behaviour of tourists have evolved as well.
These ‘new’ visitors use Airbnb or other similar sharing economy platforms
and are increasingly entering and occupying spaces that are usually seen as non-
touristic and as part of the everyday mileu of local people, challenging the
bordering between us and them or hosts and guests. Thus, we suggest, there is an
acute need to widen the discussion towards the neglected dilemmas that concern
the ethical dimensions of borders and how borders are organized and made to
work in various forms of mobility. Hence, from the standpoint of ethics it is
important to analyse different aspects and layers of borders and issues of
citizenship both generally and contextually, not only from the economic and
rights perspectives but also from the angle of citizenship participation, gender
(in)equality, and national polarization. As far as different types of mobilities and
immobilities are concerned, the ethical and moral dilemmas often appear in
highly gender specific ways (Prokkola and Ridanpää, 2017; Prokkola, 2019).
In tourism, the ethical component is often evident as a form of code of
conduct, targeted to both visitors and the businesses serving them. The World
Tourism Organization, for example, has created the Global Code of Ethics for
Tourism (UNWTO, 1999), which lists ten principles covering the economic,
social, cultural, and environmental components of travel and tourism, including
 Introduction 7
‘Right to tourism’ (Article 7) and ‘Liberty of tourist movements’ (Article 8).
Basically, in tourism, the question of ethics is about the balance between the
right to mobility and the protection of vulnerable biomes, regions, and
cultures. The rapidly growing numbers of international tourists, especially
from China and India, have provoked discussions about the limits of tourism.
These discussions have not focused on state borders but on sub-state terri-
tories within destinations, particularly urban environments, where political
protests against ‘invasive’ tourists are increasingly practiced. Indeed, many
popular tourist resorts now restrict the numbers of tourists for political, social,
and environmental reasons, and they aim to draw borders between the tourists
and the local population – and physically keep them apart (such as Cuba, the
Gambia, and Iran) – or between consumers and workers/servants. Thus, while
there are deepening economic and cultural relationships and increasing ‘rights
of mobility’ in transnational contexts (Gibson, 2010), there are also processes
that challenge the fluidity of contemporary societies, bordering, and movement
(Turner, 2007). From this perspective, globalization and related networks and
flows have not fully displaced human territoriality and bordering practices
(Paasi, 2009; Timothy, Saarinen and Viken, 2016); even tourism and tourists’
movements are not ‘free in any absolute sense’ (Britton, 1991, p. 452). Thus,
from the perspective of tourism as well, the borderless world thesis is more
complex than at first appears.
For refugees and many migrants, mobility means above all efforts to leave behind
dire, poor social conditions and to start a new life, whereas for affluent tourists
mobility denotes experiencing temporarily new, often exotic conditions because they
can afford to travel for leisure. Categorization of what is considered tourism and
what is termed irregular migration is not as straightforward as it might seem at first.
In many cases, people who arrive with a tourist visa become ‘illegal’ migrants if they
overstay their visas. In this respect, migration and tourism, in general, should not be
conceived of as separate entities but as overlapping processes with potentially
changing identities and functions. Migration stimulates the visiting friends and
relatives (VFR) type of mobility from and to their original home countries. In
addition, migrants do domestic tourism, which is often a highly neglected aspect
reflecting an Anglo-Western centrism in research and tourism development policies
(see Winter, 2009). Indeed, there remains an underlying and persistent assumption
that the activity of tourism remains an essentially Western and white phenomenon,
and that ‘tourists’ emanate from and reside in the advanced Western societies of the
global North (Gladstone, 2005; Rogerson and Saarinen, 2018).
If the tourist is a complex category, similarly the migrant is far from a self-
evident status. Some scholars like Johnson and Jones (2018) are not willing to
speak of refugees or asylum seekers at all but only migrants. Their approach
accentuates that the status of refugee is state-bound and derived from a UN
Refugee Convention (1951) that legitimates some forms of mobility (especially
those for political reasons) but does not recognize other forms such as migration
for environmental and economic reasons. For open borders and especially no
borders movements, such dividing lines are not acceptable.
8 Anssi Paasi et al.
The current, selective open borders policy inside the EU (Schengen) area, in
which EU citizens are allowed free mobility and simultaneously strict regulations
are placed on so-called third-country nationals, is often cited as an example of
the production of global hierarchies and inequality. Less attention has been paid
to regional vulnerabilities and the increasing precariousness of all kinds of
workers in the internationalizing labour market, where big companies utilize
open borders policies on the one hand and territorial regulations on the other in
highly strategic ways. International production networks enable firms and com-
panies to strategically offshore and outsource their labour to countries where
labour protection and salaries are lower, thus simultaneously putting pressure on
domestic trade unions regarding the lowering of salaries and overall conditions
of work. In many states, this kind of strategic use of open borders has produced
particular forms of precariousness for both skilled and unskilled workers (Martin
and Prokkola, 2017). Accordingly, to function, open borders policy and the
withdrawal of state regulation of the labour markets would require internalized
global ethics for companies and firms. The open borders question is therefore
intimately bound up with the operational logic and responsibilities between
public and private spheres, even if they often become blurred.
Geographical contexts and state institutions thus matter more than the border-
less worlds thesis suggests. It is possible to pose provocative questions about the
morality of the state system and divergent citizen rights and responsibilities from
the perspective of labour migration. The question of brain drain, usually from
poor countries to rich ones, represents a much-debated ethical issue of migration
(Straehle, 2018) that problematizes the praise of open borders. From the view-
point of border ethics, optimistic claims about a borderless world seem rather
superficial; the ethics of borders must be evaluated in relation to both citizenship
rights and responsibilities. Many citizenship statuses can represent both a burden
and an asset depending on the context, and such multiple inducements should not
be discussed as separate spheres; they are all part of the life world of an
individual who may at times possess the status of a citizen, a tourist, and a
migrant. This kind of argumentation points out that how the political and ethical
terms of borders are played out is a contested field.

Seeing through penumbral borders

Thinking in terms of ethics in the context of the state system is in some ways a
paradox. ‘Territorial trap’, a term coined by Agnew (1994), refers to the tendency
of modern states to abduct the spheres of the national and international and to
divide global spaces in statist terms. The state is the key actor in manufacturing
our understanding of inclusion and exclusion and hence also in providing a
specific perspective on the boundaries of ethics. This occurs through spatial
socialization in which citizens adopt a specific understanding of a national state
space, the history, and identity of the national community and its borders (Paasi,
1996). As Shapiro (1994, p. 495) has argued, the ‘state-oriented map continues to
supply the moral geography that dominates what is ethically relevant’. Borders
 Introduction 9
are key elements in the process of exclusion and states have a monopoly to
control mobilities across them and to define the accepted ethical norms and
forms of hospitality towards mobile people.
In general, many economists have seen borders as obstacles to growth and
have argued that their role should be diminished to foster a frictionless flow of
not only capital and goods but also people. Many steps in that direction have
been taken but often they have had only regional or sub-regional significance.
For example, a number of cross-border regions have been established in the
context of the European Union and elsewhere. Especially in the EU, one of the
most important reasons for deepening interaction across state borders (and to
overcome some of the problems borders create) has been the aim to reduce
political tensions, increase security, and to ensure stability in border areas
(Nadalutti, 2019). More recently, wider supra-state regional entities have been
established as a response to – and expression of – the neoliberalization of the
world economy (Johnson, 2009). Thus, if borders were earlier seen to cause and
maintain tensions, currently they are more often seen as handbrakes to economic
performance.
It is beneficial to remember that borders are highly contextual, or ‘penumbral’;
in other words, they can be quite insignificant (soft) in many practices and
instances, and yet at other times and practices they can be (or appear as)
meaningful and hard (Paasi and Zimmerbauer, 2016). Thus, borders are penum-
bral because they are not as such either ‘hard’ or soft but manifest themselves
only in certain conditions. They are thus highly selective in terms of flows and
closures, or put differently, visible only when the light comes from certain angle.
Related to being inherently contextual or penumbral, borders are also
multilayered. In this respect, we can analytically distinguish social, legal,
economic, political, and cultural ‘layers’ within borders (Zimmerbauer, 2011).
While the social layer expresses communication and mobility of people across
borders, the legal layer refers to the sovereignty of states and the potential
mismatch in legal systems that can have a negative effect on cross-border
cooperation, for example. The economic layer accentuates the different eco-
nomic systems on each side of the border and the resulting conditions for
businesses to make treaties to boost trade. The political layer refers to the
ability of states to manage their borders in the politico-administrative sense. In
this sense, the political layer resonates with the legal layer. The cultural layer
is about the traditions, values, and spatial histories that create a sense of (an
imagined) community. It also contributes to the idea of regional identity in the
sense that cultural narratives contribute to the sense of belonging. However,
regional identity is not solely based on cultural awareness but also on
delineations of a more administrative (and legal) nature. Current relational
approaches to territory and territoriality have not made borders irrelevant.
Instead, they have perhaps showed more explicitly that borders are relational
constructs, made in multiple and partly overlapping processes in social inter-
action that cross scales and spaces, and fashioned by a multitude of human
and non-human actors (Keating, 1998; Paasi, Harrison and Jones, 2018).
10 Anssi Paasi et al.
To summarize, the key motivation for producing this book stems from the
observation that contemporary borders can be simultaneously closed and open,
have multiple functions, and even locations, as contemporary territories are not
merely bounded territorial units but simultaneously also relationally constituted.
This is the material and discursive basis for various forms of mobilities and
diverging ethical and moral claims that can emerge in relation to rights and
responsibilities. In our understanding of what ethics and morality mean, we
follow the lead of Lee and Smith (2004), who see ethics as a moral theory and
morality as practical action. Thus ethics, as the subject of moral theory, encom-
passes reflection on moral values, their origin, meaning, and justification. These
elements and their contextual meanings are crucial in the case of borders, the
practices of bordering and border crossings, but can be fundamental also in de-
bordering practices, when for example claims are made about opening or
rejecting borders. The following chapters will address these contradictory devel-
opments in relation to various forms of mobility and types of borders that have
been typically discussed separately (for example, borders and tourism or migra-
tion and borders).

Overview of sections and chapters

The chapters of this collection will provide both theoretical insights and con-
textual knowledge on how borders and bordering practices are mobilized in the
case of socio-spatial mobilities. Instead of taking borders (or the pleas to make
them to vanish) as normative givens, the articles will consider how the simulta-
neous ‘geographies’ of bounded (territorial) and open and networked (relational)
spaces are realized in various contexts. General perspectives for this approach
have been outlined in this introduction, and the three chapters of the first section,
‘Borders in a borderless world’, will raise further theoretical questions. The
second section, ‘Politics of inclusion and exclusion’, comprises four chapters that
look at bordering practices in various contexts in the framework of migration.
The third section, ‘Contested mobilities and encounters’, focuses on another
major form of mobility, tourism, which has been for a long time a generally
‘accepted’ form of mobility but which has recently become an object of critique
in some contexts/locations because of experienced overtourism. The chapters in
section four, ‘Borders, security, and politics’, investigate bordering practices and
security issues in the context of the EU, a key context in which the migration and
border politics nexus has turned out to be a significant national and European
political challenge. An analysis of the US/Canada border, set in a wider
continental perspective, offers valuable comparative material for the EU context.
Anssi Paasi examines the borderless world thesis outlined by Ohmae (1990,
1995) and compares this with open and no borders approaches. He suggests
that beyond his neoliberal economic ideas Ohmae also had an ostensibly
ethical emphasis: politicians should follow the models provided by business
life and open borders. Critics of this thinking suggest that in contemporary
capitalism the borderless world is an illusion since territory and the state have
 Introduction 11
continued to be significant for capitalism’s logic, regulation, and control of
social relations. This regulation and control of mobilities focuses above all on
migrants and labour, whereas the mobility of tourists is embraced virtually
everywhere. The open borders and no borders movements push ethical issues
much further.
Harald Bauder critically studies the arguments proposed in the open borders
and no borders discourses. Bauder shows that the idea of the borderless world
entails contradictory possibilities: firstly, an open-border world of Westphalian
states that allows people to cross state borders: secondly, a no-border world
rejecting the national scale and demanding the formation of new subjectivities.
He notes how current changing social practices challenge such neat divisions.
Sanctuary cities, for example, work within the framework of national states while
simultaneously challenging national scale belonging and membership. Bauder
pays particular attention to the concept of freedom – a critical argument for the
current debates on a world without borders – as well as to the different concepts
of citizenship, and how these resonate with such arguments.
Paolo Novak examines the spatialities of borders and starts from a distinction
between border lines and border functions. He suggests that it is important to
refocus border studies around an empirical concern with the place-specific and
embodied distance between the two dimensions. In analytical terms, this distinc-
tion endeavours to recuperate the significance of border lines, as constitutive of
the interstate system, while recognizing the multiple locations in which the social
control functions of borders are activated, reproduced, and experienced. Politi-
cally, this distinction foregrounds the ways in which lines and functions are
articulated to reproduce inequalities that are both systemic and situated. His
distinction identifies the contextual distance between what is and what ought to
be, posing an ethical imperative for intervention and providing avenues to define
such interventions.
Aija Lulle studies the migrant accounts in media uses before, during, and after
the Brexit vote, pointing out that many young migrants had self-restricted their
media practices to protect themselves from the moral panic in the time of Brexit
uncertainty. The Brexit decision somewhat changed the everyday moral land-
scape of Britain, showing that media uses and moralities are not fixed but change
over time. Lulle shows the existence of divisions between various people within
the state, and how young migrants have to navigate the hardening borders in
media and in their daily lives. The study illustrates on the one hand how online
and social media cross borders more easily than people, and on the other how
everyday bordering occurs in the apparently borderless media space in many
ways.
Kathryn Cassidy examines everyday bordering in the context of the British
healthcare system and provides an analytical insight into the ethics and morality
of Britain’s political-economic rationales regarding migration. She builds her
analysis on the concept of borderwork, which refers in her article to the
spreading of the responsibilities of immigration control and checks from the
state sphere to individual citizens, and to the duty of people working in various
12 Anssi Paasi et al.
sectors. Cassidy’s analysis shows how healthcare professionals’ decision-making
has become a practice of borderwork. Healthcare personnel are required to turn
away patients in need of medical care on the basis of immigration status, and
when doing so the personnel continuously face specific ethical and moral
dilemmas. Cassidy’s analysis shows how the responsibility for conducting the
controls in healthcare access for migrants creates friction between the profes-
sional caregivers and patients, and subordinates the question of human rights to
the state economic rationale.
Elisa Pascucci, Jouni Häkli, and Kirsi Pauliina Kallio examine the spatialities
of the so-called ‘refugee crises’ that have characterized Europe and its neigh-
bouring regions over the last few years. Following the recent research, they
conceptualize both borders and humanitarianism as topological phenomena con-
stituted through relationalities that are at the same time materially grounded and
spatially heterogeneous. Pascucci, Häkli, and Kallio advance current understand-
ings of humanitarian bordering by looking at the ways in which aid workers and
migrants negotiate aid provision in both transit camps (Greece) and spontaneous,
peri-urban refugee settlements (Lebanon). In particular, they show how the
interplay of ethical performativity and enactments of security is central to the
constitution of these topological spaces.
Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola focuses on the 2015 asylum reception in Finland from the
perspective of gendered national identity by investigating how particular gendered
and morally toned categorizations and images of threat were used in the media
debate. In her paper, the categorization of people is used to depict the politicization
of national identity and to complicate the understanding of border securitization as
a question of state versus migrants. She argues for a relational conception of
national identity and belonging that pays attention to the multiplicity of voices and
struggles over migration policy within the state. The relational conception of
national identity critically includes the question of ethics of recognition.
Raoul Bianchi and Marcus Stephenson provide an overview of the evolution and
transformation of modern tourism from a privilege to a human right. In the current
context they critically focus on the contradictions between the right to the freedom
of movement and travel and the right to tourism, and on their intersections. They
analyse these rights through the prism of bordering practices and discourses through
which different modalities of travel are represented, valued, and policed. By doing
so they demonstrate how the unequal geographies of movement are made tangible.
The chapter points to a central paradox of global tourism: tourism is often
celebrated as an instrument of economic development, peace, and a marker of
global citizenship, but securitized border management regimes have increasingly
accentuated disparities between those deemed to be lacking the ‘appropriate’
credentials for travel and those whose mobility is defined as ‘legitimate’. They
emphasize that tourism should not be seen as an apolitical international phenom-
enon. Instead, global tourism should be seen as an integral part of the broader realm
of mobility politics and structural determinants of immobility.
Arie Stoffelen and Dominique Vanneste’s chapter focuses on the ethical compo-
nents, viability, and community representation of borderland tourism. Their specific
 Introduction 13
case is the Iron Curtain Trail and the European Green Belt, located in the German–
Czech borderlands. They demonstrate that the analysed tourism projects tend to
commodify conflictive borderland histories to gain support for a European-wide
cross-border cooperation discourse. However, the Iron Curtain Trail and the Eur-
opean Green Belt projects are contested on local levels, resulting from the selectivity
of EU-inspired memory politics and minimal local participation across the border.
Similarly to Bianchi and Stephenson, they emphasize the need to see tourism as a
political issue in local and regional development contexts. According to them, the
recognition of tourism politics highlights crucial questions on equity and regarding
whose memory is commodified for which purposes in borderland development
projects.
J.J. Zhang examines contested mobilities in border town contexts by engaging
tourism with the politics of mobility, morality, and materiality. He discusses the
cultural politics of cross-border consumption through shopping activities in the border
town of Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. The place is characterized by shopping tourists
from the neighbouring city of Shenzhen, and these day visitors are seen as a cause of
overcrowding, shortage of goods, and higher rental markets. This overtourism has
caused public protests, which have divided the town over conflicting views on the
consequences of increasing social and economic integration with the mainland.
Heather Nicol and Karen Everett focus on the ethical and moral management
priorities of North American borders. The focus is on power relations that have
effect on both the Canada–US and the US–Mexico borders, yet in particular on
the questions of why the state of trade matters to Canada–US relations, and
correspondingly to the Canada–US border. By discussing ‘thickening’ and
unequal borders – as well as border asymmetry – the authors conclude that the
result of the new border policy has been a ‘considerable political indifference to
inequitable and unjust border management in North America’. The inequitable
and morally dubious outcomes that result, the authors suggest, are constructed by
and reinforced through both Canada’s responses to US economic and security
hegemony, and American policies and practices.
Jussi Laine and James W Scott discuss how ‘identitary bordering’ within the
EU is not only fed by social media and populist discourses but is also part of
intellectual and philosophical arguments that, for example, interpret liberal,
humanitarian understandings of migration and idealistic notions of regional
neighbourhood (for example with Ukraine, Russia and the South Mediterranean)
as naïve and misguided. At the same time, despite all proclaimed intentions of
resetting its Neighbourhood agenda, the EU appears to insist on ‘asymmetric
conditionality’ and maintenance of the basic policy architecture that so far has
failed to promote genuine partnerships. Laine and Scott argue that one reason for this
is related to the maintenance of an EU identity and the fact that the EU’s ontological
security is bound up in the continuity and perceived coherence of its policy frame-
works. They continue that alternative understandings of Neighbourhood as a context
for societal interaction – and not a merely an ‘objective’ policy – are required. In
addition, understanding the EU as an integral part of any neighbourhood idea, joint
engagement with socio-economic, cultural and group-specific concerns could help
14 Anssi Paasi et al.
create a new self-narrative of EU actorness and contribute to a more tolerant and
ethical border policy.
Elisabetta Nadalutti discusses why it is important to have an ethical code in
cross-border governance. She focuses on this question by emphasizing the human
‘layer’ of the borders, which means underlining border zones as spaces for
human interaction. An ethical code, she argues, is beneficial in securing a
‘common language’ in cross-border cooperation (CBC). In general an empathic
relationship between the border administrators and border people is required for
successful implementation of CBC. The ethical-normative approach of the article
stems from the ethical values discussed in philosophy by scholars such as Edith
Stein, Amartya Sen, and Simone Weil, and the empirical analysis focuses on the
Italian–Slovenian border cooperation in the Upper Adriatic Region.
Estela Schindel highlights that in addition to or instead of walls, illegalized
travellers are confronted with the hardships of precariously crossing deserts or
seas. Thus, environmental factors like geography, topography, and weather are
part of border assemblages and imbricated in the complex chains of responsi-
bility and accountability for migrants’ deaths, as well as in what Alison Mountz
calls strategies of neo-refoulement. The article discusses the role of environmen-
tal factors in the context of EU maritime borders, and claims that what we
consider ‘nature’ is key for understanding the problem of ethics, responsibility,
and accountability for the deaths at the EU borders. Thus, nature needs to be
increasingly disentangled and exposed.
An afterword for the collection has been written by the anthropologist Noel B
Salazar. He reflects the significance of various forms of mobilities and puts the
chapters of this collection into a wider historical and methodological framework,
accentuating particularly the significance of ethnographic approaches. Salazar
argues that borders are here to stay, but so too is the human urge to cross them (if
needed). Borders, border-crossings and mobilities are thus not only a present-day
issue but will be with us also in the future.

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Part I

Borders in a borderless
world
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2 Borderless worlds and beyond
Challenging the state-centric
cartographies
Anssi Paasi

Introduction
Does globalization threaten the core institutions of world order, including
sovereignty and the nation-state? Are we moving into a borderless world?
The short answers to these important questions are ‘probably not’, ‘certainly
not’, and ‘quite the opposite’
(Rudolph, 2005, p. 2)

The 1990s witnessed a major renaissance in border studies, which had remained
rather static since World War II. The socio-technological circumstances behind this
revival are well known: the downfall of the geopolitical divide between the capitalist
West and the socialist East, the acceleration of globalization, and the expansion of
the internet. Scholars began to reconsider how borders should be conceptualized/re-
theorized after considering them for decades as stable lines that separate and limit
states, key political spaces. The territorial trap and methodological nationalism
dogmas rooted in the state-centric system (Agnew, 1994) were questioned, which
raised queries over what and where borders are, what they do, when, and how.
Critics reminded that since the sovereign state has traditionally been a key pillar of
exclusion, it is necessary to look beyond the statist imaginary and consider the
politics and possibilities of international ethics (Bulley, 2017, pp. 2–3; cf. Diener and
Hagen, 2009). And yet while border lines have remained significant for state
sovereignty in the context of international law, they are also important sites where
border crossings of tourists, migrants, and asylum seekers often occur.
Along with these tendencies, the concept of the ‘border’ has broadened.
Borders mediate socio-political relations in multifaceted ways at/across various
scales and also beyond border areas. Depending on bordering practices, borders
may be rigid or mobile, and may stretch across space. Borders are even more:
they are contested, multilayered sets of social practices, institutions, symbols,
and political objects (cf. Johnson et al., 2011; Paasi, 2011; Paasi and Zimmer-
bauer, 2016). As Graziano (2018) suggests, their political, legal, social, moral,
and psychological footprint fluctuates in both time and space, reflecting ideolo-
gies and power. Border-related terms are often contested in ideological dis-
courses. State authorities, security think tanks, and politicians and parties, for
22 Anssi Paasi
example, produce and reproduce such terms – often in the media – in the name
of security, to govern state spaces and citizens’ minds.
The 1990s also witnessed the rise of the ‘borderless world’ thesis that
reverberated with the intensifying flows of finance capital, goods, and cultural
influences. It was launched by management theorist Kenichi Ohmae (1989, 1990,
1995), one of a new breed of neoliberal ‘globalization enthusiasts’ (Ferguson and
Mansbach, 2012). The borderless world thesis reflected both the optimism related
to the end of the Cold War and the prospects opened by globalization. Border
scholars instantly criticized the thesis, primarily due to its overly general and
‘impossible’ character, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks enhanced such criticism.
Critiques notwithstanding, this catchphrase circulated widely in academic texts
and in the media, and still maintains much currency. Researchers refer to the idea
frequently, but often take it for granted.
This chapter will scrutinize critically this watchword, but also moves beyond
Ohmae’s economistic visions and onto claims that borders should be open for
migrants in the name of freedom of movement, human rights, and economic
competitiveness (Hayter, 2000; Carens, 2013). Claims for open borders anticipate
much more radical ideas: some have argued that free migration across borders is
not enough and that only the removal of all borders will suffice (Anderson et al.,
2009). Claims about ‘open borders’ and especially ‘no borders’ are rooted in
social movements resisting socio-spatial inequality and violence produced by
borders (Jones, 2016); thus they nod towards a genuinely ‘borderless world’,
whatever it would ultimately be, and move the focus onto human beings, ethics,
morals and human rights. Such claims are highly politicized themes around the
world in discursive struggles among political parties and ordinary people, for
instance. While the chapter begins with the Ohmaeian notion of a ‘borderless
world’, I will also compare this idea with the notions of open and no borders,
and the ethical claims embedded in these concepts. Harald Bauder’s chapter
focuses on open and no borders arguments in more detail.
I begin by scrutinizing the relations between territory, borders and moral
concerns, then look at the arguments behind the ‘borderless world’ thesis as
well as its current significance. Next I compare the thesis with the claims for
open and no borders. Contrasting these three horizons towards a ‘world without
borders’ helps to disclose the changing geographies of bounded spaces. Such an
analysis is important since, as Shapiro (1994, p. 482) notes, the dominant
geopolitical map constitutes a ‘moral geography, a set of silent ethical assertions
that preorganize explicit ethico-political discourses’.

Geography and moral concerns

Robert Sack (1997; cf. Shapiro, 1994) argues that geography is a basis for moral
judgment and that thinking geographically intensifies moral concerns. For Sibley
(1995, pp. 39, 77) spatial borders are also in part moral borders, since ‘spatial
separation symbolizes moral order’. This is most obvious in the context of state
borders that signify territory/territoriality both materially and symbolically.
 Borderless worlds and beyond 23
Furthermore, state-driven control functions and moral orders trigger and sustain
ideologies and emotions related to territories, such as nationalism and racism.
Borders typically symbolize and retain ideas and memories of possible hostilities
between ‘us’ and ‘them’ or ‘the Other’ that are reproduced in territorial ideologies
and identity narratives (Paasi, 1996, 2016). Like maps, borders are key elements of
cartographic imagination that bring together the past, present, and future (Wood,
1992) that confrontations often lean on. Today, the fear, prejudice and racial
intolerance commonly associated with the mobility of migrants provides motives
for building new border walls in Europe, the US, Africa, and Southeast Asia, walls
that regularly hide deeply asymmetric economic relations between neighbours.
Security concerns ostensibly mobilize a desire to reduce, monitor, and police
who arrives in territories, but actually complex cultural and politico-economic
geographies are at work. Spatial inequality thus foregrounds moral and normative
concerns (Lee and Smith, 2004; Bosworth, 2008) that manifest themselves in
struggles over the meanings of key terms related to borders. Borders, their
maintenance and policing are also intimately associated with national identities
and the ‘national body’ (Rheindorf and Wodak, 2018).
State-centric practices and discourses limit our understanding of both interna-
tional ethical practice and the horizons of its possibility. As Shapiro (1994, p. 495)
notes, the state-oriented map tends to supply the moral geography that dominates
what is seen as ethically relevant. Migration challenges the national/ist identity
narratives that states ideologically link to their territories and population, and that
are reproduced in spatial socialization (national education, media). Migration thus
raises critical moral and ethical questions about ‘who should be where’, and how
inclusion and exclusion are constructed and justified. Smith (2000, p. 115) states
that the social construction of national narratives that legitimate state borders of
inclusion and exclusion are ‘a normalizing strategy for the status quo, against
which may be posited a view which stresses flows of people’. The borderless
world thesis and open and no borders movements all imply that state-centric
cartographies should be replaced by more equal maps that include an ethic of
respect for difference (Shapiro, 1994). Bulley (2017) calls for hospitability, an
inevitably ethical practice that both recognizes and indeed pushes for borders that
can be crossed.

Crafting the discourse of a borderless world and its ethics

Social scientists have noted the power of concepts and ideas to create ‘truth
effects’ as part of their articulation, and how such effects may have material
consequences, eventually becoming authoritative in governance (Miller and
Rose, 1990). Globalization, flows, and networks were doubtless concepts that
paved the way to a new, more relational understanding of spatialities. Discussion
of globalization amplified during the 1990s and mobility and networks appeared
as basic constituents of the emerging spatial formations in which a dynamic
‘space of flows’ would supersede the ‘space of places’ and borders (Castells,
1989). For Galli (2010, p. 103) globalization intrinsically means ‘border-crossing’,
24 Anssi Paasi
the rupture of borders and the deformation of political geography in which politics
becomes more global. He suggests that the new polycentrism of global space
results from the residual but stubborn perseverance of the state-form, the growth of
international-transnational organizations, and the birth of a multitude of regional
regimes (p. 109).
‘Borderless world’ was also a conceptual novelty, echoing the collapse of the
Cold War geopolitical order and the search for a new one. Despite its rosy
optimism, it was also thought provoking for border scholars; whether or not they
agreed with this idea, they were happy to take a stance on it. It rapidly became
an apt illustration of another tendency characteristic of academic discourses: the
use of academic terms often mobilizes ‘counter-meanings’. Hence the critique
against the borderless world thesis has animated much of border research since
the mid-1990s. The idea simply appeared counter-intuitive: the observations of
scholars revealed the strengthening power of bordering, nationalism, and racism,
which ran contrary to such an optimistic ideal (Newman and Paasi, 1998;
Newman, 2006).
The notion of a ‘borderless world’ was popularized in Ohmae’s (1989) article
in Harvard Business Review, but especially in his book, The Borderless World:
Power and Strategy in the Interlinked Economy (1990) in which he shaped an
idea of a new consumption-oriented ‘truly global world’, in which state borders
would be transcended. He bemoaned how leading politicians were not able to
recognize the facts of the borderless world, because governments simply want to
govern, control, and to commit themselves to ethically and morally dubious acts
to lead people astray and to cheat them. This generates two competing
cartographies:

On a political map, the boundaries between countries are as clear as ever.

But on a competitive map, a map showing the real flows of financial and
industrial activity, those boundaries have largely disappeared. Of all the
forces eating them away, perhaps the most persistent is the flow of informa-
tion – information that governments previously monopolized … Their
monopoly of knowledge about things happening around the world enabled
them to fool, mislead, or control the people, because only the governments
possessed real facts in anything like real time … When information flows
with relative freedom, the old geographic barriers become irrelevant.
(Ohmae, 1990, pp. 18–19, 22)

Ohmae (1990) mentions borderless world countless times but never theorizes in
his book. Borders seem to be rigid territorial lines that separate political spaces
and ideologies from each other. He repeatedly uses ‘borderless world’ as a
synonym for globalizing business cultures, global market, flows, industry, and
progress. He also makes some ethical geopolitical claims. First, he criticizes both
states and firms that espouse economic nationalism and notes how governments
are the major obstacle that prevents people from having the ‘best’ and the
‘cheapest’ from anywhere in the world (p. 11). Things, he argues, should move
 Borderless worlds and beyond 25
freely. Second, he notes how during the Cold War period government officials
had fallen back on arguments that countries always have to be prepared for
emergencies, war, and that this situation continued after the Cold War. ‘Are
national borders really disappearing’, he asked rhetorically and replied, ‘we are
not there yet … Borders still matter and markets are protected’ (p. 211). These
ideas about emergency, war, exclusion, and protection are a nod to the modern
state system’s physical and symbolic power to regulate the practices of sover-
eignty, mobilities, and images of threat. In a word, Ohmae contests – or rather
gives to business economy an authority to challenge – the statist territorial
container model and the ‘emergencies’.
Of course, states have gradually asserted rigid jurisdiction beyond their
borders and partly unbundled sovereignty from territoriality. As Sassen (2005,
p. 535) observes, ‘While the exclusive territorial authority of the state remains
prevalent, the constitutive regimes are today less absolute than they were once
meant to be.’ Respectively, state-centred border regimes – whether open or
closed – ‘remain foundational elements in our geopolity, but they coexist with a
variety of other bordering dynamics and capabilities’ (p. 535). From this angle,
borders partly represent a permanent ‘state of exception’ that renders possible the
‘normalized’ biopolitical control and governance inside the territorial borders of
the state (cf. Salter, 2008, p. 365). Border regimes are, as King (2016, p. 2)
notes, productive.
In his book The End of the Nation State: The Rise of Regional Economies
Ohmae (1995) again reflects on the roles of nation-states. The state and its
borders are once more an example of a cartographic illusion:

Public debate may still be hostage to the outdated vocabulary of political

borders, but the daily realities facing most people in the developed and
developing worlds – both as citizens and consumers – speak a vastly
different idiom. Theirs is the language of an increasingly borderless econ-
omy, a true global marketplace. But the references we have – the maps and
guides – to this new terrain are still largely drawn in political terms.
Moreover, as the primary features of this landscape – the traditional nation
states – begin to come apart at the seams, the overwhelming temptation is to
redraw obsolete, U.N.–style maps to reflect the shifting borders of those
states. The temptation is understandable, but the result is pure illusion. No
more than the work of early cartographers do these efforts show the
boundaries and linkages that matter in the world now emerging. They are
the product of illusion, and they are faithful to their roots.
(Ohmae, 1995, p. 8)

While Ohmae (1995, p. 11) argued that ‘in terms of real flows of economic
activity, nation states have already lost their role as meaningful units of partici-
pation in the global economy of today’s borderless world’, he noted how physical
terrain and political borders still matter but ‘neither – and especially not political
boundaries – matters as much as what people know or want or value’ (p. 28).
26 Anssi Paasi
Thus, he argued, ‘in a borderless world, traditional national interest … has no
meaningful place.’ Yet, in practice (economic) nationalism prevails: ‘For nation
states and especially for their leaders, the primary issue remains protection – of
territory, of resources, of jobs, of industries, even of ideology’ (p. 64). Ohmae
suggested that the model for the future would be cross-border regions (‘regional
states’) that he saw as natural economic zones.
Both books thus encompass clues of a transnational, if not cosmopolitan,
thinking, and about a normative ethical mission: the open borderless world of
economy and markets should serve as a substantial geopolitical model for
military leaders and politicians. Yet in this world, people’s freedom is above all
affluent people’s freedom to consume and cherry-pick across borders.
Some scholars have been much more explicit when outlining the possibility of
a global civil society that would transcend sovereign-bounded state spaces. This
is most evident in critical cosmopolitan thinking, which emphasizes transnational
spaces rather than territorial state spaces. Border crossings and local and global
forces rise prominently in this global constellation, and diverse peoples should
ideally perceive mutual problems in ways that gives rise to self-problematization
and releases new ways of seeing (Delanty, 2009). Similarly, borders would in
part lose their role and take forms in which ‘no clear lines can be drawn between
inside and outside, the internal and external’. In more normative terms, ‘thinking
beyond the established forms of borders is an essential dimension of the
cosmopolitan imagination’ (p. 7).
Ohmae trusted in the blessings of the new information technology (Green and
Ruhleder, 1995) which would open ‘fixed’ state borders through expanding
capitalist markets and consumption. These views reflected the promise of a
seamless cyberspace that had entered into scholars’ and practitioners’ vocabul-
aries (Newman and Paasi, 1998), yet often in national contexts. The internet was
at first perceived – often by international relations realists – as a potential threat
to the sovereignty of the state. Those coming from the liberal tradition saw it
rather as a medium to strengthen national and global governance (Perritt, 1998).
Today, especially authoritarian but also many democratic states assert control
over the internet (Goldsmith and Wu, 2006). Yet internet connections increas-
ingly cross borders: there was an 18-fold increase in cross-border internet traffic
between 2005 and 2012 (Manyika et al., 2014).

From the borderless world thesis to the multiplication of borders

Economic geographers and political economists presented the most profound
critique against Ohmae’s ideas. For Yeung (1998) the borderless world was more
‘folklore than reality’; it caricatured the complex and multiple relationships
between capital, the state and place; the multifaceted tendencies of globalization
will neither lead to a borderless world nor to the end of geography; rather than
being placeless, capital is territorially rooted in places. Hence, its complex
processes and interconnected tendencies operate in local contexts but do not
abolish them. Yeung (1998) notes that new forms of local resistance and
 Borderless worlds and beyond 27
expression may arise which strengthen the links between the local and global as
well as the multiplicity and hybridity of social life at various spatial scales that
concurrently become relativized. Sassen (2005) proposed that globalization is
partly endogenous to the nation rather than external to it; the ‘global’ partly
inhabits the ‘national’. Territorial differences and geographical unevenness will
remain central to globalization. Massey and Clark highlighted the impact of
globalization on borders and stressed the uninterrupted power of territory and
place:

One of the ways in which a ‘globalized world’ is frequently characterized is in

terms of a planet in which all borders and boundaries have dissolved and in
which flows of people, money, cultural influence, communications and so on
flow freely … Yet, even as this image of a globalized world becomes ever
more powerful, it is clear that the world does still have its borders and
distances, that it is still in many ways divided up into territories; indeed, that
new enclosures are being erected in the very midst of the production of
powerful new flow … It may even be that the very process of opening up
which is implied in so many stories (and realities) of globalization itself
encourages a need to build protective boundaries, to define areas of privacy –
territories which can be controlled in some way or other.
(Massey and Clark, 2008, p. 3)

Yeung (1998, p. 304) succinctly concluded: ‘There comes a point when we must
raise our heads from books of ultraglobalists, look around and reconsider
whether borders have really disappeared, and whether the world is, in fact, a
unified whole’. A critical point was the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. Since
then, borders and their control mechanisms have multiplied and become increas-
ingly multilayered, more selective and ethically problematic, and yet border
crossings have continued to increase apace. The globalization of finance has
continued for decades and new technologies and new markets have pushed cross-
border capital flows to new levels. Flows of goods, services, and finance reached
$26 trillion in 2012, representing 36 per cent of global GDP (Manyika et al.,
2014). People move also: billions of international border crossings take place
every year in business and leisure travel; similarly, students, migrants, and
asylum seekers move (Koslowski, 2011).
The volume of tourism has increased perpetually. In 2014, more than 1.1
billion tourists crossed state borders. New destinations are evolving in both
developed and developing countries. Whereas the fairly unregulated migration
prior to 1914 was not regarded as a challenge to state sovereignty, and many
states supported labour migration until the 1960–70s, the situation has changed.
Although some authors argue that borderless economics requires free migration
(Guest, 2011), many politicians believe that international migration is a threat to
the sovereignty (read: security) of states, especially to their ability to regulate
mobilities across borders (Castles et al., 2009, p. 5). The share of people living
outside of their country of birth has grown gradually, being 100 million in 1960,
28 Anssi Paasi
155 million in 2000 and 244 million in 2015. This is about three per cent of the
world’s current 7 billion population (cf. Castles et al., 2009, p. 7). These figures
include about 20 million refugees. These relatively modest numbers nevertheless
seem to animate nationalism and exclusive national socialization. Rudolph
(2005) notes that after the originally positive attitude towards labour migration
that required ceding some sovereignty for the benefit of economy (trade and
capital mobility), contemporary control of migration (citizenship issues and
border control policies) is intimately related to ‘interdependence sovereignty’
(control over migration flows), domestic sovereignty (the relationship between
government and polity), and societal sovereignty (identity). This relatedness
accentuates borders, nationalist idea(l)s of a ‘we’, symbolism, and the practices
of exclusion.
Despite the ongoing construction of border walls, curtailing of free migration,
and general criticism, the borderless world thesis persists in academic and policy
debates related to global business, management, consumption, innovations,
security, taxation, drug problems, and, of course, the present and future roles of
borders themselves. In December 2017 Google Scholar finds 23,400 hits for
‘borderless world’ and Google no fewer than 386,000. Yet, the new literature
moves beyond the naïve celebration of a borderless world, underlining the power
of national laws, traditions, and customs in the control of border crossings,
mobilities, cyber-space, and real spaces (Goldsmith and Wu, 2006). Borderless
world is also associated with cross-border security threats: climate change, illicit
traffic of drugs, ‘illegal’ immigrants, cyber security and computer viruses,
microbial threats, and the geopolitics of disease prevention (van Schendel and
Abraham, 2005; Relman et al., 2010; Hansen and Papademetriou, 2013; du
Plessis, 2018). Some analysts think that states are not relinquishing security
structures linked to traditional state-centred images of threats but rather are
exploiting simultaneously both traditional and wider complementary security
‘missions’ (Reveron and Mahoney-Norris, 2011).
Current borders and bordering practices display some of the varied ways in
which different institutions articulate state borders. Sassen (2009) notes how the
governance of state borders is increasingly characterized by multilayered, dis-
persed, and segmented modes of regulation and governance, and how new
assemblages of political, legal, and territorial practices signify lasting pressures
between new global relationships, national identity, and state security. She notes
that bordering is turning into a practice and capability that can be disconnected
from traditional ‘border geographies’ (such as international airports and consular
offices). One example is the spread of military power in global space across
‘sovereign’ state borders. The United States in particular created a military
presence across the globe after 9/11, with over 700 military bases outside of the
US in close to 80 foreign states (cf. Johnson, 2004). Similarly, the governance of
borders is distributed in global space. The UK border agency (currently UK
Visas and Immigration), for example, promotes itself as a global organization
operating in local communities, at the UK borders and across 135 countries
worldwide.
Another random document with
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top of the shoulder, for the shoulder slope is within the angle of 135
deg.
Taking away 15 deg. in front of the plumb line leaves 120 deg., or
2 points of the circle, as shown in Dia. XI and XII, each containing 60
deg. The center of the 120 deg. and the center of 135 deg. represent
a space at the top of the shoulders, which may be used for the
shoulder straps on military or society coats. The shoulder seam is
cut through according to style or notion, and the forepart and side
connected under the arm with the center of the back and the center
of the front running parallel, as in Dia. I; or the back running parallel
with the plumb line, as in Dia. II.
Either the front or back line may be used as a base, as in Dia. I, or
the back line and plumb line, as in Dia. II. With the help of the
diagrams, the bases ought to be plain to everyone. Yet the following
in addition might be said: The angle of 135 deg. is ⅜ of a circle; cut
on the double, it will give ¾ of a circle when spread apart. Three-
fourths of a circle represents 3 squares, and a vest or coat, or any
garment worn around the neck and shoulders, consists of a ¾ circle,
or of 1 circle less 1 square. (See Dia. XI and XII.)
When the square is cut away from the center of the circle, and a
hole cut in the center large enough for the neck to pass through, and
the front edges are again connected, then it will fit the whole outside
of the human form, except the sides below the arm. The square cut
out of the circle takes away all shoulder slope. Each of the two backs
and fronts requires a reduction of 22½ deg., as shown in Fig. I;
hence, 4 times 22½ deg. will take up the full amount for both
shoulders. If each back and each front requires a reduction of 22½
deg., it will require 45 deg. or half a square to be cut out on each
side of the body, as in Dia. IV and V. Thus the bases are:
1st. The full circle.
2d. Three-fourths of a circle.
3d. Three-eighths of a circle, or 135 deg., for the center of the
back and front.
 The angle of 135 deg. is again divided into 4 main parts, as 90, 45,
30 and 15 deg., and may be divided into as many minor divisions as
fancy will admit, or points to be found in the variation of garments, as
in Dia. XII-A.
To measure the shoulder slope as shown in Fig. I, is a thousand
times better, and more reliable, than the so-called upper and lower
shoulder measures, or whatever such measures may be called. But
for all that, actual practice in taking this measure will show, that even
here some guess work must be done, and while I have said
elsewhere that the shoulder slope should be measured, and that it
can be measured, as indicated in Fig. I, yet it is equally true that that
measure can be learned to be taken by sight, and such eye-sight
measure may be acquired in one week, or after handling and
measuring one dozen persons. After the eye of a cutter has caught
the normal form of the shoulders, his eyesight will teach him most all
variations, as good as a measure. That measure, taken by eyesight,
or with any other instrument, must be taken over a coat with a good-
fitting shoulder, or better, over a good-setting shoulder; for a
shoulder may fit the body and still may not set well.
Again I must repeat this warning: Be slow in making changes,
especially at the shoulder seam, for Dia. II will fit 49 out of every 50
persons, providing the sleeve does not drag the shoulder out of
place.
The single garment, spread upon a flat surface, represents a
circle, less one square, or less 90 deg., or a reduction of 45 deg. at
each shoulder; but it must not be supposed that the form of Dia. XI,
after having the edges of the square connected again, will form a
slope like the shoulders of a human form, that is a slope of 22½ deg.
The shoulder slope is calculated at 22½ deg., but that is only on
each side of the body, and the center of the front, and the center of
the back run down more straight, and in order to bring the ¾ of a
circle, like Dia. XI, in harmony with the shoulders, the centers of back
and front must be pushed nearly straight down, and then the sides
will rise up, and form the slope for the shoulders.
 If Dia. XI is cut from a piece of stiff paper, and the edges of the
square are connected, and that circle formed in one continuous
shape, like that of a lamp shade, it will form a slope of 30 deg., or
near that slope, and corresponds to all diagrams, with a square of
17½, and with the plumb line base in front, from which base the
shoulder slope is 30 deg., as shown in Dia. IX.
Here it will be noticed that the bases, as adopted in this work,
mean something more than imaginary lines. They mean actual
slopes of the human form, and quantities which are parts of the
square or compass, and which instruments are known and used by
all civilized nations.
 Squares of Seventeen and a Half
and Twenty.
The squares of 17½ and 20, and lines 9 and 11¼, are both
permanent bases. But the lines which connect the back to the
foreparts, or to the side piece, or join lines 9 and 11¼ over the front,
require especial explanation. Line 9 on the front base of the angle of
135 deg., and line 11¼ on the front plumbline, meet in the center of
the square of 20 and in the position as indicated on Dia. II. Line 9 is
broken between the side-piece and back, and turned 15 deg.
upward, but will be of the same space as the square of 20 when the
side-piece and back is connected. The square of 17½ is one-eighth
less than the square of 20, and harmonizes with the division of the
circle, as shown on Dia. XII.
In both Dia. XI and XII, the circle has a full diameter of 40
numbers, and the triangle as shown in Dia. XII, has 35 numbers on
each line, making an equi-lateral triangle. One-half of the circle is
used as a square of 20, as in Dia. XI. One-half of the triangle is used
as a square of 17½ as in Dia. XII. The square of 20 represents the
amount used for the whole half vest, seam and surplus included, and
the square of 17½ represents the half breast measure. The correct
combination of the square of 20 and 17½, can only be used on a
vest with one seam in the center of the back, and one seam under
the arm. On coats the square is enlarged on account of more seams
and other reasons elsewhere explained; but for all that, the squares
of 20 and 17½ are a true guide for all coats. It will be seen that the
squares of 20 and 17½, as used in this book, are not imaginary lines,
but based upon a scientific calculation from the center of a circle or
the corner of a square, which are used by the whole civilized world
as points, or fixed facts.
By further examination of Dia. XI and XII, it will be found that all
the essential points necessary in cutting a vest can be found within a
circle, and without using a scale—all of which is further explained in
the article entitled, “Scientific Calculation.” Another reason why lines
9 and 11¼ on the front bases are adopted, is the following: Lines 9
and 11¼ meet in the center of the square of 20. Line 9 runs at right
angles with the center of the front. Line 14 on the back runs at right
angles with the center of back. When the garment is upon the body,
both run in the same direction, are in their natural positions, and on a
square of 20.
For the reason that the vest is cut off below the waist, it can be cut
on the square of 20 without piecing the pattern. But on a coat this
cannot be done without piecing the pattern, and in order to obtain a
draft or a pattern, without lap or piecing, the square of 20 is
transformed into an angle of 15 deg., which contains the square of
17½ as for a vest, to which is added one-half for one extra seam,
and which one-half more causes the squares of a frock coat to be 18
and 20½. And for reasons explained further on in this article, and in
Dia. III, a three-seamed sack must have the same squares as that of
a frock coat of five seams.
The following points must be well observed: Dia. II has a square of
18, or half an inch extra on the plumb line base, which half an inch is
allowed for one extra seam. The square of 17½ would answer the
same purpose if each side piece and each forepart was allowed one
extra seam; but this would cause the pattern to be pieced, or
allowance would have to be made for one seam, which will always
be found troublesome, and for this reason the square is enlarged to
18. But, to be more definite, the square should be 17½ and half an
inch for all sizes, because if ½ an inch is allowed for a seam, this
seam requires the same for all sizes. Perhaps ⅜ inch will do the
same, or maybe better for a snug fit, particularly for fine work, where
⅜ of an inch is amply sufficient for a seam; but I call it ½ an inch for
the reason that ¼ of an inch more or less in an entire coat is nothing,
particularly when we must admit that no two cutters will take the
same measure, and that very few cutters are able to take the same
breast measure twice with the same result, if done so in using a
blank tape.
Though the square of 18 will result in a square of 20½, we find that
if we observe Dia. II correctly, the back square, which ends at point
15, on the center of back, sinks below line 11¼ in front, and
becomes larger and consequently a reduction is made at that line
between the back and side piece, in order to re-establish the square
of 20. Again, if we observe Dia. III, or the combination of frock and
sack (and the vest as well,) we find that by turning the sidepiece
forward at the waist it will turn backward about ½ inch at the
shoulder blade, and although the top of the sidepiece and back lap
½, the square remains 18 for a three-seamed sack coat, the same
as for a frock. The fact that I did not observe this simple point at the
beginning, but made the square of a three-seamed sack ½ less than
a frock coat, caused me to devote years in making alterations.
Dia. III is the best combination of frock, sack and vest, which I
have been able to secure in 10 years of diligent study. Though the
vest is not shown on it, because too many lines spoil the illustration,
but anybody may observe the sameness in Dia. XII. Now, supposing
the vest to be put in Dia. III, we simply reduce its square ½ under the
arm to make it 17½ and place the height of back at 14. The
combination places the different backs at the following height above
line 9. Frocks at 14¼, vests at 14, and sacks at 13½. The squares of
18 and 20½ are, of course, for a coat, but this does not destroy the
principle of cutting a vest over the same pattern, simply reducing it ½
inch in width under the arm, and cutting the top of the back ½ lower,
or 3¾, as shown in the Vest Dia.
Neither the square of 20 nor the square of 17½, nor the angle of
15 deg., nor any other angle or square, will fit the body precisely,
either of which must be adjusted to the requirements of the form; but
when we know what a certain square or angle represents, and how
they harmonize with the slopes of the body, we can very easily
deduct or add to, as the case may require.
Now, although certain garments require more or less in the
square, I will, in comparing, always mention the squares of 17½ and
20 as on a vest, for the reason that line 11¼ meets line 9 at its
center—that is, at the center of the square of 20—from which point
all calculations are made for turning or changing the lines over the
back. The square of 17½, with the angle of 15 deg. attached in front,
produces both squares 17½ and 20 on this particular spot, though
the square of 20 is broken on line 9; and within the squares of 17½
and 20 all calculations are made in the article on “Narrow and Broad
Backs.” By the terms: square of 17½, or 18, or 20, etc., I mean to
say that the distance from the centre of the back to a certain base in
front is such a distance. It may be that if I should say: a right angle,
so and so far from back to front, would be better grammar, but I
think, a square of so and so much will be fully as well, and may be
better understood by the majority of cutters and tailors.
 Diameter of Both Shoulders from
Side to Side.
This article was written as long as ten years ago, and I have often
thought to omit it, but have come to the conclusion that it is worthy of
a place, and in fact, I may build better than I expect. Dia. V, VI, IX,
and all others with a square of 17½ represent the diameter of the
shoulders from side to side, either on the half, as Dia. V and VI, or
the full, as in Dia. IX and others. Fig. I represents the full diameter,
but cut in two at the center of the body. The width of the shoulders
may be measured, but ordinarily that measure may depend more
upon the condition of the garment over which it is to be taken, than
upon the body itself. As a rule, that measure should be taken only for
extremely narrow or extremely broad shoulders, and even then,
there must be a good deal of guess work. As long as we allow the
width of the shoulders 9¼ at 60 deg. we will never miss the mark
from size 35 down to the smaller sizes. When we come to size 40 we
have enough with 9 to 9½. Forty-three is plenty wide with scant 9,
and size 50 is large enough with 8¾. Here is a difference of ½
number on each side of the coat, in 25 sizes, and that calculation
can be depended upon. The width of the shoulders does not grow in
proportion to the circumference of the breast, and in cases of doubt
as to how much to allow at 60 deg., it is better to allow ¼ inch too
little than ¼ inch too much. A shoulder which hangs too far over to
the arm, and which is often noticed on large sizes, is worse than a
shoulder which is too narrow. Again, a broad shoulder requires a
scant sleeve head, while a narrow shoulder can stand more fullness
on the sleeve head.
But I have started out to describe the shoulder of a man, as they
may be narrow or broad, and in order to be quite plain, I will take up
size 35, and use the term inches, for this particular article. On a draft
of a size 35 the width of one shoulder, from back to side, is about 8
in., and which is ¾ inches less than the half square of 17½, but the
¾ inches are used up for seams. On top of the shoulders, the body
is nearly flat, both across the back and front, and it is quite flat on a
great many persons, but for our purpose all may be called entirely
flat, and that part can be measured with a straight edge when the
coat is on the body.
On this part, and above, the coat must swing the same as a piece
of cloth will swing on a straight pole. If that part of a coat fits nicely, a
great many other faults are usually forgiven, but if the shoulder
breaks somewhere, complaint will be made. It will be seen by this,
that the square of 17½ is not an imaginary quantity, but that it is in
actual harmony with the shoulders, the same as the angle of 15 deg.
is in harmony with the forward slope of the center of front. There is
the square for a regular part of the form, and the angle of 15 deg. is
for a irregular part.
On the lines of the square of 17½ a coat or vest can be folded up
flat, and this can best be seen on a vest, which has no sleeves to
hinder it from folding flat. A good-fitting vest can be folded up, on the
square of 17½, and laid on a flat table, and it may lie there for ages
without wrinkling, but can not be so folded on any other square. The
angle of 15 deg., or the front part will always run forward of the
center of the back, when folded up. When a garment is put on the
body, it has to perform two distinct motions, and the center of the
back must be considered the hinge on which the coat swings, just as
a door swings on its hinges. From the center of the back the garment
is swung sidewise, and locates from back to side, not from back to
front, and for this reason must be fitted on straight lines in the back
and in the front. From the side of the back, the garment is swung
forward to the side of front, and both side of back and side of front
may be called hinges again, because the body is really flat between
all these points, and from the side of front the garment is swung
again to the center of the front, where it runs up and down parallel
with the center of the back. While it makes this motion it loses
nothing in length, but its whole width of 20 in. will be divided between
the two half diameters of the shoulders sidewise, and between the
diameter from back to front.
The upper part, or that portion of a garment which is located on
top of the shoulders, must perform a different motion. While the
lower part swings around the body in a circle, the upper parts move
on straight lines, on which the whole back is swung forward and the
whole front is swung backward until they both meet. The shoulders
lose in length, but nothing in width, which remains the same on the
body as it was on the flat table. A garment must swing, and balance
itself on the diameter of the shoulders, and there a coat must fit the
body, and perhaps this is the only place where a garment should
actually fit, as far as the conception of an actual fit goes, in garment
fitting.
But now, we must consider a broad and a narrow shoulder, and
observe the results of putting the same coat on both forms: The
center of the back can not give, and the cloth must be thrown over
the shoulders forward, and in a circle; and if anything is in the way
which takes up more cloth, like a broader shoulder, which throws it
sidewise, the front will be the loser, that is, the front will be too small.
Here may be found one of the reasons why some men require a
larger coat in proportion to their breast measure than others. The
broader shoulder requires a larger coat around the sides and
armhole than the narrow shoulder, because the broad shoulder
throws more cloth in that direction, but the measure around the solid
chest indicates nothing of that kind.
Let us suppose we have before us a man to be measured for a
coat, and when we observe him, we make up our minds that he
measures 40 inches breast. We draw the tape and it records 38. We
measure again with the same result. Next we take the proof
measures, and we take the so-called upper and lower shoulder
measure, short measures, long measures, and what not measures,
then we add and subtract again, according to our learning, and then
we cut the coat very carefully, so that every fraction of the proof
measures conform to our lines; and when the coat is done and the
customer puts it on, behold! it is too small all over, the coat is thrown
onto the shelf, and afterward sold for half price, notwithstanding that
it was cut promptly to the balance measures. On a narrow shoulder
we observe the contrary results as to the fit, and we will always find
that a narrow-shouldered person can wear a smaller coat around the
arms and the back.
In regard to a narrow shoulder, we may consider the form of an
erect and full-breasted male and that of a female. As far as the upper
part of the body is concerned, they must both be treated on the
same principle. According to their breast measures, both need a
smaller coat around the arms and back and a larger portion must be
allowed in front of the breast. Strip a female’s breasts, and she will
measure several inches less, and that amount has to be taken off in
front, and that form will correspond to the form of an average male
form. Now, to fit a female with a coat draft for a male, we must use a
34 pattern for a 36 breast, and allow 1 in. over the front of each half
garment, and reduce, by gores, whatever the waist is smaller in front
and below the fullest part of the breast. A coat for a full-breasted
male must be treated on the same principle, only less prominent.
I do not claim to know much about cutting and fitting garments for
females. That takes quite another calculation, but if I would start in
to-day to learn to fit garments for females I would start out by taking
a draft for a man’s coat for my guide, and use a scale of 2 to 3 sizes
less for the female; allow 1 to 1½ in. at the front of each half breast
and reduce at least 1½ in. at the waist below each breast. I would
not change the shoulders, nor the hollow of the back, except the
location of the seams, but I would go to work and find the normal
proportion between the waist and the hips of a female, and thus
produce spring enough over the hips, which nature has wisely
provided very large for females. The center of back and front I would
cut nearly on the same plan as Dia. II, only more prominent behind.
I throw the above out as a hint for cutters who may go to female
tailoring. The time will soon come when men will pay more attention
to cutting and fitting female garments because it will pay better, and
some one may possibly be benefited by the above suggestions.
Knowing what I know to-day, I would, if I were fifteen years old again,
or even twenty, go to work and learn Female Tailoring.
 Angle of Fifteen Degrees for
Coats and Vests.
(SEE DIA. XIII.)
If we take a square piece of paper and encircle the body from under
the arm to the waist it will fit perfectly, although, when on the body,
the front will be 15 deg. higher than the back; and if we want to form
a level waist, we must attach a piece to the bottom of the front,
amounting to 15 deg., as shown in Dia. I and IV. If we extend that
piece of paper, or cloth, down to the side of the thigh and seat, we
must cut it open at the side of the hip and below the waist, and insert
a piece to accommodate the spread of the body, as shown in Dia. I.
But the spread of the garment all around the lower body could be
made better if two cuts were made—one at the side and the other
near the back—representing the front and the back seam of the frock
coat sidepiece.
Dia. I represents the body of a coat, that is, from arm to hip, in a
position which it has to assume, when upon the body, and it must be
observed that a garment, spread on a flat table, can only be in
harmony with the body at one point; all other points must differ, and
can only be correctly located by their true relation when on the body.
This, I claim, is nearly the natural position of the garment when upon
the body, and would require no seam at all below the arms and
above the waist. If this piece was not wide enough we could enlarge
it to the size desired, and wherever necessary, and would make no
difference in the fit so long as the seams are allowed for. When
taken off the body it will fit the flat table just as well as it did the form
of a man. In this position of a coat, as on Dia. I, or a vest, as on Dia.
IV, it makes but little difference if the side seams are cut a trifle more
forward or backward—the fit will be the same.
I therefore claim that all changes in the seams, as the vest, frock
and sack coats, must be made while in position, as in Dia. I and IV,
or at least must be made on lines 9 and 14, etc., whenever the back
is obliged to assume an unnatural position, as in Dia. II—all of which
is further explained in the article on “Narrow and Broad Backs.”
But we must go back to the angle of 15 deg. If we take a square
piece of cloth, representing the ½ breast measure of a 35 coat, we
will have 17½ inches each way. If we add an angle of 15 deg. to one
of the sides it will give us an angle of 15 deg., although the top point
is lost, but would form like the upper part of Dia. XIII. The angle of 15
deg. spreads ¼ of its length; consequently it spreads 5 in. in 20, as
seen in all diagrams in this work, with the front angle of 15 deg.
attached.
Line 20 is located at the top of the hips, where the body spreads
considerably, and the hip measure may be considered as large as
the breast measure, though in different positions, as the hips spread
more sidewise. The front line of the attached angle of 15 deg. is, at
the same time, the front line of the angle of 135 deg., as well as the
front line of the square of 20.
Now observe, that in changing the lines on the square of 20 in.
into a square of 17½, with the angle of 15 deg. attached in front, the
front does not change a particle, but the back, at the waist, is
detached and thrown backward and upward, becoming larger at the
waist and smaller on top, and forming the angle of 15 deg.—all the
spread being toward the hips and seat, representing a garment
without lap and without gore at the hips and seat, and without any
waist suppression. Below the front of the waist the body recedes,
and the front of the angle of 15 deg. is cut off accordingly, and runs
straight down with the plumb line, as shown in the diagrams.
But this is not all. The angle of 15 deg., as in Dia. II, represents a
straight but pointed or funnel-shaped piece of cloth, has its proper
size at the bottom of the armhole, at the hips and seat, and front of
the chest and waist, but is too large at the hollow of the waist above
the hips and seat; and in this position gores must be taken out to
imitate the hollows of the waist at the side and back. Not all is taken
out, but only a portion, just to show the outline of the form; and if
everything else is well proportioned, ½ inch more or less cloth at the
waist will be of little consequence. It is of more importance to
ascertain the depth of the seat and hollow of the waist, so we may
know where to run out the gores, or where to make it the most
hollow.
Line 17½ on the front plumb line may be considered the hollow of
the waist for the normal form, and the seat may be located at 27 or
28, but on extremely short or slim persons these points should
always be measured with care. In cutting according to the rules
adopted in this work, the outside of the elbows can always be
depended upon for the location of line 20, and the hollow of the waist
is 2½ numbers higher, all to be measured from top of back. For the
seat point, take the largest part or the upper point of the thigh bone,
which corresponds to the wrist, the arm hanging down.
If the half breast can be fitted with ½ breast measure and 2½ in.,
all seams included except what the lapel takes up, the hip can be
fitted with ½ hip measure and 2 in., all seams included except the lap
of the buttons and button-boles, because the hip requires nothing in
consequence of expansion, as the chest does. If the hip measure is
the same as the breast, say 17½ in. for the half coat, then it follows
that the hip, at the waist seam, may require 19½ in. and about ½ in.
for lap of button-holes and buttons, making 20 in all. This must be
the result, no matter if the draft is made like Dia. I or Dia. II. In Dia. II
it will be seen that whatever the hips spread at line 20 is again
reduced by the gore in the center of the forepart, as well as by a
small reduction from the center in front. It should be observed, that,
although the breast and hip may measure the same, the form is
different at the hip than at the breast. The front is compressed and
spreads sidewise at the hips, just like Dia. I.
Observe that the square of 17½ and the front angle of 15 deg.
measure 22½ in. for size 35, at line 20; and it follows that 2½ in. may
be reduced on and along line 20. Dia. II, and all others laid out in the
square of 17½, are not only based on the above calculation, but are
founded upon years of trial, and virtually the calculation is made from
facts so obtained. This is also the way in which all the other
diagrams have been produced. The angle of 15 deg. will fit the
normal form at the arms, at the largest part of the seat, at the side of
the thigh, and the front of the chest, but is too wide at the hollow of
the waist behind, and stands off below the front of the waist, and
must be reduced by gores as shown. On the back, it must be
considered on a plumb line, spreading sidewise and forward.
The trifling spread below the side of the thigh is taken off by the
gore in the center of a frock coat forepart, and is turned forward
between the skirt and forepart; while on a sack coat it is partly cut off
between the back and side seam, which is further forward than the
frock coat skirt seam, and by which the gore in the center of a frock
coat forepart is balanced. Now, in this position, it might be
reasonable to make calculations for waist reduction by comparing
breast, waist and seat measures, but as the waist is not to be fitted
at all it would be useless unless we could take the measure just as
wide as we wanted the coat at the waist, which cannot be done
satisfactorily; therefore, we take the average, and cut out the waist in
proportion to the breast measure. But it can be done only after the
angle of 15 deg. is established, and recognized as a base, and
understood, according to the principles adopted in this book.
But I must again call the attention of the reader to the plumb base
on the back. The angle of 15 deg. is based upon a plumb line on the
center of the back, both shoulders and the seat touching said line,
and the front line of the angle of 15 deg. running forward and away
from the body below the pit of the stomach, while the back runs
straight down, as a coat must hang, as is shown in Fig. II. The back
plumb line is not given in Fig. II, because it would interfere with the
diagram above.
I do not claim that all men walk in that position, but tell a customer
to stand before you for measurement and he will usually assume that
position. In walking, a man is inclined to lean the upper portion of the
body forward more or less; but leaning forward or backward the line
from the shoulders to the seat is carried along, and the base will
remain the same from the shoulders to the seat, and in a large
majority of cases no attention need be given to altering either back
or front; but there are extremes, and these do require a change
there. A form may be stooping, or erect, but still may carry the
shoulders and seat on a plumb line. Such forms require no change
at the waist, but at the neck only; and a cutter must always observe
such positions, because no so-called balance-measure will indicate
it. But there is the so-called “sway-back,” who carries his shoulders
way back of the seat. Such a form requires his coat reduced at the
waist, not between the back and sidepiece, but between the
sidepiece and forepart, unless a large waist requires or takes up that
space again. We often see large-waisted and always erect forms
with their coats too tight over the back tack, because the waist is not
large enough for the hips. How much the reduction at the side should
be must always be determined by the judgment of the cutter; but an
outlet at the side of the forepart is more important than anywhere
else—it will never do any harm and may become very handy
sometimes when it is least thought to be necessary.
When a coat swings off behind it can easily be brought to the body
by stretching the whole back and back of side seam, from the
shoulder-blade downward; but when it is too close there, more width
must be obtained by the help of the outlet at the side of the waist,
and by stretching the sidepiece downward on the forepart, in order to
force the width backward. Coats which appear too close at the back
tack are usually so because the hips have not cloth enough, when
an outlet is very handy again; but this seam should always be sewed
by hand, because a machine-sewed seam will show when let out.
All outlets around the neck do more harm than good; and if they
are left on, for the purpose of trying on, they should be cut away
before the collar is sewed on, especially on heavy goods. A coat that
is too loose around the neck can always be brought to the body by
taking up the shoulder seam, which will reduce the length of the
forepart, and leaves the back correspondingly longer.
The normal form represents a slope of 15 deg. forward from neck
to waist, but a large-waisted form may represent an angle of 20 deg.,
and consequently such a form requires an addition in front of waist
and outside of the front base; and I find that a large-waisted form
requires from 1 to 1½ in. extra allowances in front of waist on a vest.
The angle of 15 deg. measures 5 numbers at line 20, hence every 3
deg. measure 1 number at the point. Every corpulent individual
should be measured according to the front slope of the chest. I know
it is an odd measure for a beginner, but a little practice will make it
plain work, and it will pay well. I do not claim that the measure must
be taken absolutely correct, but it should be nearly so, so that an
idea can be formed of what a person may want.
The angle of 15 deg., with a width of ½ breast, or its equivalent, as
17½ numbers for a vest, or 18 numbers for a coat, at the starting
point of a garment, which is the angle of 135 deg. within the angle of
15 deg., as seen in Dia. XIII, contains the proper spread for, and
around the hips and seat, as required for a coat. For waist
suppression at the sides and the back, gores are cut out, according
to notion or style, or according to the nature of the garment. It must
be remembered that the position of the shoulders and the whole
forepart is the same in all diagrams in this work, and that the change
from the square of 20 to the square of 17½ is made by changing the
back, or the sidepiece, or both.
Now it will be seen, that if either of the back or sidepiece is moved,
but kept together on their connecting points, as on lines 9 and 14,
etc., the gores must change, as well as the height of the back above
the bottom of the armscye and on line 9 over the front. Thus the
back or the sidepiece may be laid in any conceivable shape, and in
any conceivable square, and the fit will be the same, though all
points assume a different relation to the starting point. The angle of
15 deg. is here adopted because it conforms to the slope of the body
and not as a pet idea, and it is also adopted for the reason that a
garment can be laid out in it, without piecing the garment, or cutting
out unreasonable amounts as gores.
Dia. II shows the whole coat on the angle of 15 deg., and the
gores around the waist are for a normal form of a size 36, that is, the
waist suppression is one-ninth part of the whole breast, or about 2 in.
in both gores around the side and the back, on the half coat. This is
the reduction within the angle of 15 deg., when on the flat table, but
when sewed together, the garment will form like Dia. I, or nearly so,
and when in that position, the seams around the back of the waist
may be changed some, without destroying the balance, but as a
general thing the seam between the back and sidepiece should not
be tampered with, unless there are good reasons, such as style, or
for erect forms, where the folding up of the sidepiece will contract the
gore between the back and the front skirts or close it up altogether,
or in extreme cases produce a lap over the seat. Fuller waists are
usually of erect forms, and for such the under-arm cut may be
reduced for the larger waist, and the gore between side and back
may be reduced at and below the tack. That cut, or gore, between
the back and the sidepieces will always be a difficult thing to handle,
for the reason that it is a curved gore.
If we would cut the back of Dia. II 1 in. wider over the blade on one
coat, and cut another one 1 in. smaller at the same point, without
changing the lengths of the back above the armhole, we would spoil
both of them, unless we know how to make things right again by
sewing the parts together. On the broad back, with a straighter
seam, the sidepiece would have to be reasonably stretched over the
blade, or the back held full, which is the same, while the more
narrow and more curved back must be sewed on the sidepiece
rather close, though it will never do to hold the sidepiece full, or
stretch the back there.
Dia. II is so calculated that both sidepiece and back must be
sewed on even over the curve, above line 9, and the best of tailors
will sometimes be compelled to baste them together several times
more than they like, before they get them right, or the way it is
intended. Here we can find the reasons why certain parts can be
worked the very contrary, and both ways will fit, and for this reason a
newly-arrived jour. should be thoroughly instructed by the cutter, as
to how things must be put together according to his cutting, and the
cutter himself should be a good tailor, or at least he should know
how it is to be made, even if he can not do the sewing. A cutter who
is a thorough tailor himself will always be a better cutter than the one
who only knows how to cut, all other things being equal.
The angle of 15 deg., as used in this work, is calculated for the
normal form of a male. Males with extra large hips require more
spread toward the side of the hips, and must be placed under the
head of abnormal forms. The normal form of a female is very large
over the hips, and the angle of 15 deg. would not produce spread
enough for a female. It is true, this work has nothing to do with the
cutting of female garments, but I think it important enough to point
out the above difference between the male and female form, for it
may become of use to some of my readers. Soon the time will come,
and, in fact, it is now and has been for some time, when men will cut
and superintend the making of fine female garments, just as females
now make the common garments for men. There are millions in it.
The angle of 15 deg. is taken as a standard in this work, because
it is easily found by spreading two lines one-fourth of their length. It
is also a common division of the square—one-sixth. It is also the
twenty-fourth part of a circle. It is not an unknown quantity, but
something recognized and acknowledged by the whole world. Now, if
anyone contends that a larger angle, or a smaller one, is better, I will
not find fault, but I would like to see the proof.
The angles, as laid down in this work, are a standard—something
rational to go by—the same as a pound or a yard. Our grocer never
sells an actual pound of coffee, nor does our dry goods merchant
sell us an actual yard of calico, and we all know it, but we are
satisfied with it because we can do no better. It serves the purpose. I
claim that two angles of 15 deg., formed in funnel-like shape, and
connected at the widest part like Dia. XIII, will at least come nearer
to the shape of the human form than a square piece.