Borderlands in East and Southeast Asia

Emergent conditions, relations and prototypes

Yuk Wah Chan, Brantly Womack

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367255176
• eBook ISBN: 9781351600958
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a glimpse into the different emergent borderland prototypes in East and Southeast Asia, with illustrative cases and discussions. Asia has contained a number of reactivated border zones since the end of the Cold War, borders which have witnessed ever greater human activity, concerning trade, commerce, tourism, and other forms of money-related activities such as shopping, gambling and job-seeking. Through seven borderland cases, the contributors to this volume analyse how the changing political economy and the regional and international politics of Asia have shaped and reshaped borderland relations and produced a few essential prototypes of borderland in Asia, such as reopened borders and re-activated economic zones; reintegrated but "separated" border cities; porous borderlands; and abstruse borderlands. This book aims to bring about further discussions of borderland development and governance, and how these actually inform and shape state-state and state-city relations across borders and regional politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Asian Anthropology.

Borders, boundaries, horizons and Quemoy in an asymmetric world^†

Brantly Womack

The diversity of borderland realities makes the necessity of general conceptualization particularly challenging. An interrelated conceptual triad is proposed and then applied to the experience of Quemoy Island (

, Kinmen, Jinmen) from 1895 to the present. All borderlands are places in which contact is shaped by a standing and distinctive disparity, and the boundaries that both define and split the area create the rules of border gaming and the larger contingencies influencing border identities. Whether a village, a region, or a state is treated as a borderland – in other words, the horizons of focus – is determined by the analyst but on the basis of the realities of venue and governance. In Quemoy and most other border situations, asymmetries of power, resources, and capabilities provide an uneven ground for interactions and therefore shape the realities and perceptions of contact.

Border areas are among the most richly textured human spaces, bringing endless delights to adventurers and endless headaches to regulators. To pursue abstractions about them seems to be contrary to their nature. To ask the question, “what do all borderlands have in common?” appears to squeeze the life and uniqueness out of each one and to leave an uninteresting, leaden residue. It is nevertheless a necessary question. Terminological consistency requires attention to definitions, and, more importantly, a general conceptual model provides a framework for communicating, comparing, and articulating differences among cases and changes over time. The first task here is to try to formulate a conceptual scheme that would be true of all borderlands, anywhere. Not because they are all the same, but because if we call them all “borderlands” we must have some general feature in mind. While this philosophical anatomy of borderlands is pallid and lifeless, it will be applied to Quemoy, a borderland whose variety of experiences stretches the limits of conceptualization. We first lay out the bare bones of the conceptualization, for the sake of clarity, and then Quemoy adds the flesh. Finally we will consider the effects of asymmetry in structuring border interactions.

Border areas, boundaries, and horizons

With a little effort and imagination, every situation can be described as a border to something, or between two things. National borders are the most obvious, but there are frontiers of terrain, urbanization, ethnicity, political intensity, and so forth. Even personalities can have borders. With such a flexibility of application, the question of what is or is not a border becomes meaningless. The better question is what is being claimed when we call something a borderland?

The challenge of defining a border is more complex than it might seem. It would be easy to take the position that, for instance, “a border is a place where two states meet,” and to consider any other usages either incorrect or metaphorical. While that approach would distinguish the category of “border” from everything else, it would not tell us much about why borders are interesting, and why the usage of the term stretches beyond that “proper” categorization. It is rare that a researcher is simply contrasting a border to a non-border. Rather, it is the complexity of border reality that attracts attention. Definitional gate-keeping has its uses, but a more fruitful approach might be to reflect on why people are interested in what they call borders.

I argue that there are three elements or dimensions to the claim that something is a borderland. First, it is a venue of interactions based on differences. It involves a border area in which differences meet. Second, a border implies a distinction between a periphery and one or more centers. A border implies boundaries. Lastly, research about a particular border requires a framing, a horizon of discourse. I label these elements border areas, boundaries, and horizons. Their underlying general claim is that there is a significant and located difference in the borderland that merits attention.

The three elements of border areas, boundaries, and horizons constitute a conceptual model for borders and have utilities beyond mere categorization. To be sure, any sustained discussion of a border should involve or imply all three elements. Like a molecule, the elements can be distinguished, but all three are required for completeness. But the elements are not equally important in all cases and at all times. Rather, they are like the moments of a conceptual triad in Hegel’s dialectic, related to one another and each fulfilling a distinct logical role.¹ As we will see in the case of Quemoy, it moved from a rather boundary-less situation of being the stepping-off point for emigration to the South China Sea to being a closed-off hyper-boundary during the Cold War. Research about Quemoy before 1947 fits well into the horizons of coastal China, while afterwards it became part of the Cold War, and more recently a border area between Taiwan and the Mainland. Exploration of the different salience of the elements moves the conceptualization of borders beyond mere categorization. We can move beyond the questions, “are the essential elements present?” “are we talking about a border?” to the more interesting questions, “how do the elements relate and change?” “what makes this border worth our attention and generally significant?”

Borders areas: venues of interactions presuming difference

A border area is a venue of interactions that presumes a significant gradient of difference. It is a place of a special kind of contact. For example, any market presumes a difference between buyer and seller, but these are roles that anyone can have and anyone can change. The peculiarity of a border market is that the different situations on either side of the border create a gradient that affects interactions. The gradient of difference, whatever that might consist of at a particular border, creates both the opportunities for contact and the urge felt by officials to govern interactions. Rice can be bought and sold in any market, but if the price of rice is higher in China than in Vietnam, in the border market rice will tend to be a popular item flowing only in one direction. Difference is not always a matter of price. Mainland Chinese come to Hong Kong to buy huge quantities of infant formula because of food safety scandals at home. Many resell the powder to Shenzhen wholesalers when they return across the border.

A border area does not have to lie between two centers. Any periphery with a located gradient of difference could be considered a border area. For example, coastal/inland, agricultural/nomadic. One can consider the interactions between the centers and peripheries of William Skinner’s macroregions of China as border interactions, though this might stretch the notion beyond its usual application (Skinner 1977). Basically, if one place has something that a neighboring place doesn’t, then it is likely that there will be a gradient of interaction based on that difference at the place where they meet – the border area. In the case of a seaward border the “neighboring place” becomes non-specific, and in the case of emigration the gradient of difference pulls people out of the border venue.

A significant gradient of difference is not limited to commodities, and interactions are not limited to the exchange of goods. Border areas between ethnic groups or states are usually characterized by cultural interactions premised on difference. A border is a place where a fairly stable and distinct difference provides the framing tension of the fabric of interaction.

A periphery of central control can be viewed as a border area if there is a significant gradient of difference with the center. If two remote peripheries meet at a frontier then a border area can become an intermediate zone. Instead of a gradient of difference between the interactors themselves, the border frontier can be defined by a difference between the shared periphery and its various centers. An example would be a trans-border ethnic group engaged in smuggling. In contrast to the typical border area the internal interactions would be homogeneous but the interactions with centers would be based on difference. This would be a limit case for a border area because it would not be intersected by boundaries. But the difference between such an area and its surrounding centers would be the reason for treating it as a border area.

Boundaries: differentiation of identities and interests

The second element in the conceptual molecule of borders is the idea of boundary. Boundaries are the source and reality of the gradient of difference present in border areas. The second moment in a Hegelian triad is that of definition, of determining the limits of the first, and in most cases boundaries define the border. As James Scott has argued, there is an inevitable tension between mobility and governance (Scott 2009).

The liminality of borders creates an analogous urge for transparency and control on the part of the respective states, hence border checkpoints and visas. But it is not only the states that must define themselves. The borderland actors exist in a fluid and contingent environment that requires a constant recalibration of who they are and what they want. The term “boundaries” is felicitous because it suggests the challenge posed to identities by interactions based on difference. The interesting thing about the role of definition of identities and interests in border areas is that it is not the border area itself that is delimited; rather each interactor, facing the gradient of difference, must stake out his, her, or its identity and interests. Boundaries are posited by the different identities and interests of each side, and they meet in the middle of the border area – they bisect it. The border area is the place where bounded identities meet.

The most obvious boundaries are those marking political control. To some extent these boundaries create the differences that literally define border areas. The train stops here. Passports must be shown. And in most cases boundaries create the barriers that, by attempting to control contact, create and shape an interactive venue. As the concerns of border governance approach zero, as in the EU’s Schengen system before the 2015 refugee crisis, the border area becomes less meaningful. There is less reason to cross, and fewer people stop or are stopped. By contrast, a frontier border area with diminished central control from any direction can develop its own identity distinct from its transnational situation. The difference between a border area and an interstitial state can sometimes be a matter of interpretation.

If a border is hostile or sealed and cross-border interaction is prohibited, then a border area is literally marginalized. It becomes the edge where one political identity confronts another, alien identity, militarized and impoverished by its loss of opportunities. While a locality in a rear area has a full circle of possible interaction, a sealed border has at best a half circle as well as the security distortions of being at the front line of confrontation. As the boundary becomes an absolute barrier, the border becomes an edge of authority rather than a border area.

In a “normal” border area, one where interaction occurs and is governed by both sides, the difference in governance shapes each side of the venue. If it is very tedious for anyone, including locals, to cross the border, then it will tend to be a rather sterile point of inspection and transshipment. If there is a difference in governance but border formalities are bearable then the border area itself will induce a clientele attracted by the different grass on the other side of the fence. If there is a special permissiveness for local, small-scale interaction, as on China’s mainland borders (Chan 2013), it is likely that a third and more richly textured layer of localized interaction will be part of border life, involved with more formal international exchange but distinctive.

Just as commodities are not the only modality of border interaction, so politics is not the only modality of boundary governance. As groups take advantage of interactions outside their group, they must protect their particular interests and identities. Indeed, the presence of other groups requires additional definition of their own identity, beyond intergenerational socialization and subgroup rivalry. And perceived pressure from other groups requires governance of group boundaries. Contact requires groups to develop their own “foreign policy” and to manage the borders of their own identities. As with political boundary management, societal and cultural governance can run the gamut from self-isolation to uninhibited contact, though there are more options to specify different categories or targets of looser and tighter group concern.

Horizons: framing border areas

The third element in the conceptual molecule of borders, horizons, also fits well into the Hegelian triad of moments. The first element, the border venue, expresses the “thereness” of the border area, the location of interactions premised on difference. The second, boundaries, provides the counterposed definitions that delineate the different identities that meet as well as their patterns of interactions. In the third moment of framing, the observer posits that there is a significant locus of interaction based on a gradient of difference. The framing decision is an aesthetic judgment of the perceived coherence of border area reality. Different horizons are possible because the observer can focus on different dimensions of significance. To illustrate, a border area could be a local market on the China-Mongolian border, or adjoining border counties, or even Mongolia itself as a nexus between Russia and China. Framing is subjective in the sense that it is done by the observer, but significance is asserted on the basis of a venue of configured interaction. It is important to note that while it is up to the analyst to pick the framing, it is not simply a matter of analytic categorization. The claimed horizons must demarcate real contexts of interaction.

Quemoy (Kinmen, Jinmen, Chinmen,

,

)

The discussion thus far has been an attempt to construct a conceptual framework sufficiently abstract to be used to discuss any border. It aspires to be more than a “yes it is one/no it isn’t one” categorization of border areas. Thus it is important to illustrate its utility by applying it to a case. However, since the point of the framework is to add an analytical dimension to the texture of border studies rather than to displace the thick description of its reality, I will first sketch the general situation of Quemoy and only afterwards directly address the elements of the framework.

Quemoy (see Figure 1) is a small island with an extraordinarily complex experience of border interactions. It has an area of 150 squar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction – Not merely a border: borderland governance, development and transborder relations in Asia
• 1. Borders, boundaries, horizons and Quemoy in an asymmetric world
• 2. Mobile North Korean women and their places in the Sino-North Korea borderland
• 3. The Thai-Burmese borderland: mobilities, regimes, actors and changing political contexts
• 4. Mongla and the borderland politics of Myanmar
• 5. “Trust facilitates business, but may also ruin it”: the hazardous facets of Sino-Vietnamese border trade
• 6. A tale of two borderlands: material lucidity and deep play in the transborder tourism space in Hong Kong and Macao
• Index