Global borderlands: a case study of the Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Philippines

Abstract

By developing the concept of “global borderlands”—semi-autonomous, foreign-controlled geographic locations geared toward international exchange—this article shifts the focus of globalization literature from elite global cities and cities on national borders to within-country sites owned or operated by foreigners and defined by significant social, cultural, and economic exchange. I analyze three shared features of these sites: semi-autonomy, symbolic and geographic boundaries, and unequal relations. The multi-method analyses reveal how the concept of global borderlands can help us better understand the interactions that occur among people of different nationalities, classes, and races/ethnicities and the complex dynamics that occur within foreign-controlled spaces. I first situate global borderlands within the literatures of global cities and geopolitical borderlands. Next, I use the case study of Subic Bay Freeport Zone (SBFZ), Philippines to show (1) how the semi-autonomy of global borderlands produces different regulations depending on nationality, (2) how its geographic and symbolic borders differentiate this space from the surrounding community, and (3) how the semi-autonomy of these locations and their geographic and symbolic borders reproduce unequal relations. As home of the former US Subic Bay Naval Base and current site of a Freeport Zone, the SBFZ serves as a particularly strategic research location to examine the different forms of interactions that occur between groups within spaces of unequal power.