Frank Furedi - Why Borders Matter

The idea for writing this book first emerged during the early months of 2016. I was asked to give the keynote lecture on the topic of borders to open the Philosophy Festival in Leuven, Belgium on 16 March 2016. Coincidentally I was requested to present the keynote on the same subject to the Dutch National Day of Philosophy at the University of Tilburg on 16 April 2016. This was a time when the issue of mass migration to Europe dominated the headlines and the subject of borders was widely debated throughout Europe. As a former Hungarian refugee, who was forced to leave his country of birth and cross a border into another country, I enthusiastically embraced an opportunity to seriously reflect on the issues at stake.

Two years later, my interest in borders was also unexpectedly provoked by a research project that I undertook to investigate the history of identity and the crisis that is often associated with it. After studying historical and philosophical reflection on this subject, I became convinced that the problems associated with what is known as an identity crisis, interweaved with the issue of borders. I came to the conclusion that conflicting attitudes towards physical borders between nations were often echoed in debates about the meaning of symbolic boundaries between adults and children, man and woman, humans and animals, the private and the public sphere. It seemed to me that Western society had become estranged from hitherto conventional borders and boundaries. I drew the conclusion that the problem of identity was a sublimated expression of societys alienation from the making of moral judgement and the drawing of lines. Explaining why borders provide the signposts that assist humanity to gain meaning is what motivated me to write this book.

I am grateful to the intellectual companions and friends who put up with my questions and arguments regarding borders. In April 2019, I was able to test out some of my ideas at the Academy of Ideas Symposium on Culture Wars. The Twenty-First Century Foundation in Budapest encouraged me to develop my ideas on the cultural meaning of borders. My friend and colleague, Dr Jennie Bristow, read the draft manuscript and provided much needed criticism. I gained important insights from the feedback offered by my colleagues, Dr. Simon Cottee and Dr Michael Fitzpatrick.

A Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship provided support for this project, which gave me the opportunity to discuss border-related issues in Washington DC, New York, Berlin, and Paris.

As ever I am grateful to my wife for her constant lectures about the importance of moral judgement and choice.

Frank Furedi
November 2019

Borders have become one of the most divisive issues of our time. Donald Trumps campaign slogan Build the Wall on the United StatesMexico border may have won him the support of millions of voters, but it also provoked the wrath of some of the dominant influencers of American culture. In the media, borders have a bad press and are often portrayed as sites of inhuman practices directed at helpless refugees. The prevailing narrative presents borders as oppressive, discriminatory, exploitative, and characteristically, violent. It is frequently suggested that borders nurture racism and xenophobia. In some instances, these narratives imply that the main purpose that borders serve is to promote and reinforce extreme nationalism.

The prevailing anti-border narrative looks down on people who take borders seriously and regard borders as essential for their security. According to this narrative, peoples support for border security and national sovereignty is not only misguided but also a source of conflict. Animosity towards borders is not merely confined to the physical boundaries separating nations. Western culture frequently displays unease towards its symbolic boundaries such as the one separating adulthood from childhood or the one that divides the public from the private sphere. In recent times, even the boundary that distinguishes between male and female is condemned by activists, who insist that it oppresses transgender people. Conventional symbolic boundaries, like physical borders, are often dismissed as archaic and oppressive by influential members of the cultural establishment. In theory if not in practice the ideal of open borders enjoys cultural ascendancy and traditional moral and symbolic boundaries are often rejected for being outdated or arbitrary or discriminatory.