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2B-Model of the Borderland
Models of Interaction of the Border and the Boundary
Using the offered differentiation of notions the construction of several models of
interaction of borders and boundaries becomes possible.
The first model represents the variant when the border and the boundary coincide.
Primordial society with no division into political, religious and economic spheres can
serve as a good example. This model has been studied in detail by sociology since the
times of Durkheim. It seems attractive to the community that regresses in its social struc-
ture as well as to totalitarian societies which take separate subjects beyond the borders of
the social structure, but at the same time they try to extremely simplify their social struc-
ture, having achieved concurrence of political, economic and cultural borders between
themselves. The achievement of such homogenization is inevitably connected with vio-
lence as it suppresses the practices of the subjects based on their freedom and boundaries
built by them.
The second variant of the border and boundary interaction is possible when the bor-
der forms space, relying on certain boundaries, making cultural, religious and other kinds
of expansion. That is how modern national states in England, the Netherlands, France,
and Germany were forming. Similar processes are accompanied by acculturation, assimi-
lation, provincilization of space experiencing such expansion.
The third is the model in which the subject that has created the boundary is divided
between several border spaces. The sacred Roman empire of the German nation can be
used as an example of this model. At present studies of the European integration pro-
cesses and processes occurring in border areas are carried out within the framework of
this model (border-studies [8]). However, frequently the problematics of the border area
research substitutes the problems of the Borderland [9].
The fourth model can be named a 2Â-model. It assumes the coexistence of the bor-
der-space generated by the border and the boundaries interacting with the border-space.
In fact, it is the Borderland model. Within its framework it becomes possible to resolve a
number of questions:
a) formation
of the border and border-space;
b) formation of the presentation strategy of the subjects creating boundaries in the
border-space;
c) legitimation of the independent status of the
subjects creating boundaries;
d) institutionalization of the subjects creating boundaries;
e) creation of the interaction mechanism of normative systems of the border-space
and the subjects creating boundaries.
The specified mechanisms shall be distinguished from the identification process as
they function during the joining of the public sphere by the subject with an already avail-
able precise system of identity. Identity is one of the basic conditions and bases of the
boundary construction. But the designated mechanisms do not represent socialization
mechanisms as their purpose is not the inclusion of the subject into a certain social struc-