Political Boundedness and the Role of Cartography

Abstract

"I will question the legitimacy of borders via its underlying premise: the supposedly natural boundedness of communities. Two avenues are usually used to show the legitimacy and necessity of borders: either as a way to protect and preserve the conception of the good and the values of an already existing bounded community; or as a way to create a democratic polity, the limits of which are required to uphold the rights of citizens. Either way, what is presupposed is that communities are and/or should be bounded. I will argue that the arguments in favour of political boundedness do not hold up to scrutiny, least of all in the form of territorial borders. This will lead me to a discussion on the precedence of the graphic gesture of drawing the line, and hence on the violence of boundary-making. Keywords: Boundaries, space, nation, state, cartography, line "