Heriberto Cairo, John Agnew
Bordering, as the sum of the processes that produce the borders of states, has become a widely accepted term. Yet, much of the emphasis in its use rests on the spread of so-called border control and enforcement beyond the immediate vicinity of state’s territorial borders as such. Less attention has been given to how much external borders depend on the identification and policing of internal borders that define population groups within state territories seen as threats because of their political, social, or economic differences from the ‘mainstream’ or dominant groups and/or their putative connections beyond the external borders. Today this logic is intimately associated with immigrant groups, particularly those seen as having gained entry without formal admission as economic immigrants or refugees, viewed as diluting the historic demographic profiles of the nations that the states are held to represent. In fact, and historically, internal ‘enemies’ have been defined in a variety of ways relating to the geopolitical eras in which external borders have been viewed as in question. This paper addresses the overall logic relating internal to external bordering and then considers the different ways in which this has played out historically across geopolitical eras from the early nineteenth century to the present day.