Bordering Practices: Negotiating Theory and Practice

Abstract

Following the shift from borders to bordering practices in the field of border studies, this article proposes bordering practices as specific kinds of critical spatial practice which occur through processes of negotiating and narrating, and are situated in relation to concepts of everyday life and spatial practice. The essay explores the bordering practices of art and research as critical spatial practices in their capacity to transform certain border positions, including those between theory and practice. It presents a site-specific and practice-led research project that examines political and sectarian conflict since its resurfacing in Beirut in 2005. The research project worked with residents to negotiate the borders of surveillance, sound, displacement and administration. The process allowed the production of new bordering practices of crossing, translating, matching and hiding that transform borders into multiple shifting practices, and of representations that divide and connect simultaneously and challenge the fixity of borders.