Borderscapes in landscape: Identity meets ideology

Abstract

This article explores the interrelatedness of ideology and everyday practices, which initiate and shape bordering practices in landscape. By analysing a case study of (re)arranging Estonian land usage borders after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it gives a glance at how the conflicts that arise from bordering practices are reconciled on the individual and collective level. The empirical material of the study is based on the minutes of the Estonian Parliament (1990–1995), semistructured interviews, and land maps. The article maps the intermingling of (a) ideology, (b) everyday practices, and (c) bordering practices on changes in the landscape during the period of legislative turbulence in the 1990s. The article suggests that the processes of shaping borders in landscape are dynamic, depending on complex interrelations of identity and ideology. Additionally, past layers become important both in negotiating everyday lives and in negotiating legal issues.