Border Route Research Articles

Territorium Ciuitatis Ausdecensium: an Open Issue of Ancient Topo-Demography

This paper aims at re-examining the available data regarding the location of ciuitas Ausdecensium in Moesia Inferior, starting from the uncertainty as to the place where was discovered the inscription CIL III 144372 – the famous boundary stone which records the resolution of a land dispute between this ciuitas and a neighbouring population of Dacians. The analysis is focused on some key-elements which could elucidate the relation between ciuitas Ausdecensium and the Thracian strategy Οὐσδικησική recorded by Ptolemy: the fact that we deal with a boundary stone which, therefore, was initially placed at an extremity of the territory belonging to this ciuitas, the fact that this territory extended in the opposite direction, most probably to the south, from the place where the boundary stone was installed, as well as the fact that the interprovincial border between Moesia Inferior and Thracia is considered to have passed north of the Balkans’ range, not very far from Danube’s line, although the exact border route is still debated. All these circumstances lead to the plausible consequence of territorium ciuitatis Ausdecensium reaching the interprovincial borderline. At its turn, this consequence, corroborated with the location in northern Thracia of the strategy Οὐσδικησική, according to Ptolemy’s account, supports the possible contiguity between territorium ciuitatis Ausdecensium and the territory of the strategy Οὐσδικησική. If this hypothesis is accurate, it may shed light on the processes that led to the creation of this ciuitas and, at the same time, could generate the need to be reassessed the opinion that considers this population of southern Thracian origin as having been relocated to Dobruja.

Whitescapes: A posthumanist political ecology of Alpine migrant (im)mobility

This article explores the many more-than-human actors involved in crafting migrant (im)mobility across the Alps and the racialised (re)production of the borderscape as what I call a whitescape. Using cycling and hiking as embodied and mobile methodologies of encounter it examines the entanglement of landscapes, terrains, gradients, weather, water, and forests, alongside transport and tourist infrastructures: roads, railways, tunnels, bus routes, ski slopes, golf courses, hiking trails and cycling tracks in shaping how illegalised migrants encounter the Alpine Susa Valley/Hautes-Alpes border routes and how these ecologies are made political. Drawing on the work of Juanita Sundberg the article makes the case for posthumanism and political ecology in the study of borderscapes and illegalised migrant (im)mobility, while being sensitive to the racist dynamics of the nature/culture divide present in much posthumanist and political ecology scholarship. Therefore, while the article makes space for the role of more-than-human actors in borderscapes it also highlights the racialising work of these more-than-human entanglements in the following ways: through perpetuating dualist ontologies of nature/culture or nature/human from which illegalised migrants are linked to the natural, read pre-modern, world; and through producing illegalised migrants as ‘bodies-out-of-place’ in a political ecology that is concomitantly (re)produced as a whitescape.

Faces in the Wilderness: a New Network of Crossdated Culturally-Modified Red Pine in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness of Northern Minnesota, USA

New dates from culturally modified red pine rediscovered in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota provide an opportunity to merge tree-ring records of human land use with archaeological records, historical travel accounts, and traditional knowledge to enhance understanding of Anishinaabeg land tenure in the Wilderness. Records from 244 culturally modified trees (CMTs) demonstrate varying intensities of human use along historical water routes, notably the Border Route that connected Grand Portage to Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods during the North American fur trade. Crossdated modification years from 119 CMTs provide direct evidence of human-landscape interaction along historical travel routes utilized by Anishinaabeg and Euro-American traders from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s. This CMT network preserves a fading biological record of fur-trade-era cultural history that contributes to a growing cross-cultural conversation on the storied traditional use of a cultural landscape that is now the most visited federal wilderness area in the United States.

River boats as a means of expansion of Aedes aegypti towards border zones of the peruvian amazon

To assess the entomological risk of Aedes aegypti in boats traversing border river routes in Loreto. The study population consisted of mosquitoes present in three boats covering border routes in Loreto. The entomological risk of Aedes was determined through ovitraps, the inspection of breeding sites, and the collection and taxonomic identification of adult mosquitoes. The entomological risk varied according to the route and the season. A medium to very high entomological risk was identified in the high-water season and on the outward route to the border areas. The predominant vector population in the low-water season was Mansonia sp. (74.8%), Culex sp. (12.8%), and Aedes aegypti (0.4%); in the high-water season, Culex sp. (45.1%), Mansonia sp. (26.8%), and Aedes aegypti (19.7%). In no case did we find Aedes albopictus. There is moderate to high entomological risk during the high-water season in riverboats traveling from Iquitos to the border areas of Loreto. Our results show that river boats are a means of expansion of Aedes aegypti.

Building the urban physiognomy of Berlin through the “well-ordered facade” of the Stadtbahn

This article unfolds the analysis of the railway viaduct that crosses the German capital in an eastern-western direction. The aim is to decipher the urban design strategies used in the highly planned Stadtbahn, focusing on the configuration of Berlin’s urban physiognomy through a “well-ordered facade.” Thus exposing the morphologically linear construction associated with transport infrastructure, making clear the railway project design as a building-viaduct, imposing its architectural facade’s scenic effects on the surrounding public space. Through an in situ survey it is left clear that this building-viaduct, has the ability to break the “curse of border vacuums “, counteracting the destruction of neighboring areas that typically converts the segregated path into a physical and social border route. The intention is to clarify the value that architecture adds to these infrastructures originated as an accurate response to specific problems of time and distance, enlightening a multidisciplinary field, which becomes increasingly unavoidable, where the contribution of architects is still very much diffused. KEYWORDS: Transport infrastructure, Railway, Well-ordered facade, Building-viaduct, Urban physiognomy, Berlin.

As potencialidades turísticas do roteiro caminhos da fronteira

The theme of this article is about the tourism potential of the “Border Route” through a tourism cluster. In the introduction we highlight the tourist areas of the state of Santa Catarina, then we conceptualize the terms: tourism, tourist and cluster. The study covers the municipalities which are members of the tourist region called Caminhos da Fronteira, including the municipality of Mondaí, also part of the Association of Municipalities of the Far West of Santa Catarina, and which is one of the sources of study. Faced with the weaknesses found along the route of the border, it is extremely important to seek alternatives to boost tourism along the frontier region. Mainly, investments in conservation of roads in the region, since it is the passageway for many travelers between the south and the Mato Grosso do Sul state and between Argentina and the coast of Santa Catarina. Although rich in natural beauty, it is still little explored. We must spread the culture of tourism in the region,specially rural tourism, adventure and leisure activities. Besides tourism alternatives, entities and supporting organizations are also required to give support for the tourists who come here leisure, amongst them we could mention entities such as banks, health centers and hospitals, pharmacies, restaurants and others.

Rompiendo la “maldición de los vacíos fronterizos”: La construcción de la fisionomía urbana de Berlín a través de la “fachada bien ordenada” del viaducto ferroviario

This article unfolds the analysis of the railway viaduct that crosses the German capital in an eastern-western direction. The aim is to decipher the urban design strategies used in the highl planned Stadtbahn, focusing on the configuration of Berlin’s urban physiognomy through a “well-ordered facade”. Thus exposing the morphologically linear construction associated with transport infrastructure, making clear the railway project design as a building-viaduct, imposing its architectural façade’s scenic effects on the surrounding public space. Through an in situ survey it is left clear that this building-viaduct, has the ability to break the “curse of border vacuums”, counteracting the destruction of neighboring areas that typically converts the segregated path into a physical and social border route. The intention is to clarify the value that architecture adds to these infrastructures originated as an accurate response to specific problems of time and distance, enlightening a multidisciplinary field which becomes increasingly unavoidable, where the contribution of architects is still very much diffused.

Changes in Administrative Borders and Their Stability in Lubelskie Region in 1949–2010

The article presents the problem of changes in administrative borders in the Lubelskie region throughout the past 60 years, since the end of World War II. In this period Poland experienced four major reforms that transformed the system and structure of administrative division. In five periods between the reforms there were also certain minor changes along the national borders. The analysis of changes was primarily based on cartographic materials presenting the administrative divisions, which allowed for efficient analyses of the border routes. Using the archive maps the authors prepared analytical maps from 8 temporal perspectives. Consequently, synthetic maps presenting all the observed changes in voivodship (Polish: województwo), county (Polish: powiat) and commune (Polish: gmina) borders were drafted. Such materials were the base for preparing the final maps illustrating the stability of the border routes between voivodships, counties and communes. The analyses of the materials allowed number of conclusions to be drawn. Firstly, the borders of Lubelskie Voivodship are relatively stable, particularly the fragments which run along the Vistula and the Bug Rivers. In the case of county borders, their permanence is much lower. At the lowest level of administrative division, variability is the highest, yet the share of permanent borders reaches 40%. Generally, it can be stated that the higher the level of administrative division, the higher the stability of borders. The present article may constitute a basis for further research on the causes and effects of borders between administrative units. Along with the analysis of border permanence, another problem that the authors addressed is the method of linear presentation of object changes. In order to analyse border changes effectively, the authors propose an indirect presentation of border stability by showing the stability of the area marked within these borders. Such a device substitutes the troublesome analysis of overlapping linear structure with an analysis of a clearer image of stability, presented with contour lines.

Re-bordering the neighbourhood: Europe’s emerging geographies of non-accession integration

This paper highlights the ways in which the emerging models of migration management are producing new geographies of the European Union’s borders that complicate notions of a tightly bounded and easily delineated ‘Schengen space’ or ‘Fortress Europe’. Under policy frameworks such as the European Neighbourhood Policy and the EU’s Global Approach to Migration, a process of economic and political regional integration is under way that is beginning to transform the ways in which non-accession neighbours and neighbours of neighbours in North Africa and beyond are articulated with the EU. Central to these changes are programmes, institutions and practices of both regional economic development and border routes management. This changing geopolitical and geo-economic approach to regional integration and the nature of European borderlands has at its heart a series of new spatial imaginaries, institutional actors and cartographic experiments that point to a project in process in which the relationships between territory, state and population are being reconfigured to produce new notions of sovereignty across more complex and multiple borders and, in some cases, beyond borders.

Fotoassessorismo: a imagem fotográfica na assessoria de imprensa da Prefeitura Municipal de Maringá

Este artigo analisa, pela perspectiva metodológica da desconstrução analítica, imagens fotográficas da assessoria de imprensa da Prefeitura de Maringá para tentar responder à seguinte questão: Que estratégias de sentidos a imagem fotográfica em assessoria de imprensa constrói? Neste intento, tem como objetivos: 1) Conceituar o aspecto de intencionalidade de comunicação; 2) Inferir sobre seu uso em serviços de assessoria de imprensa; 3) Analisar se os formatos e gêneros do fotojornalismo permanecem em imagens de assessoria. Como discurso, a imagem em assessoria visa à construção de sentidos positivos para o assessorado. Neste caso, o repórter fotográfico, com o domínio dos recursos técnicos e da linguagem fotográfica, intenciona dispor elementos, objetos e personagens para construir conceitos, valores e representações positivas do assessorado.

Effects of network economies in high-speed rail: the Spanish case

The first high-speed rail was inaugurated in Spain in April 1992 on the Madrid–Seville route with great success in passenger occupancy and notable impact on the regional development. The Madrid–Barcelona–French Border high speed rail has not been inaugurated yet, as it has been subject to delay in the engineering work. These facts have led public opinion to be very favorable toward the Madrid–Seville high speed rail but unfavorable toward the Madrid–Barcelona–French Border route. In this paper, we will compare the “ex post” cost–benefit analysis by De Rus and Inglada (Ann Reg Sci 31:175–188, 1997) for the Madrid–Seville route with the “ex ante” cost–benefit analysis made by Inglada and Coto-Millan (Essays on Microeconomics and Industrial Organization. Springer Physica, Heidelberg, 2004) for the Madrid–Barcelona–French Border route. The basic assumptions of time values, accident values and social discount rate of 6% in real terms are the same in both studies.