De la frontière à l'espace-frontière : quelques propositions d'analyse sociologique

In: Revue des sciences sociales, Band 48, Heft 1, S. 56-65

Abstract

From the border to the border area : some proposals for a sociological analysis.
This contribution returns both to the notion of border and how it is understood in research in human and social sciences through a threefold examination. It starts by examining the polysemy of borders, based on empirical elements with regard to the border regions of eastern France and adjacent areas in neighbouring countries, more broadly set in correlation with contributions from literature. This epistemological approach is continued in the second part of the article which explains how the border as a subject of research is moving towards the border area over a long-term scale, from classical geopolitics to recent analyses of crossborder co-operation, which may be pragmatic or more critical, not forgetting functionalist approaches to borders. This analysis sets the stakes of acknowledging the substantiality of borders in order to understand the processes and the stakeholders. A third section specifically examines the conceptualisation of the border area, within a dialectic of spatial and social aspects with all due regard to a twofold internal (inter-world) and external (original environment) dynamic. The result is the full sweep of how we consider borders in social sciences as a framework, an object and an analyser, especially in relation with the changes in the scale of public action in Europe.