Theories of the Present
Theories of the present have converged on changes in spatialization or the spatial order of societies. These social science proclamations aim at setting major research agendas. Intriguingly, there is a focus on borders and boundaries in programmatic statements on reflexive modernity or remodernization (RM) by Bruno Latour and Ulrich Beck. They argue that boundary-marking and border-making become simply more fraught or obvious.
It is insufficient: aren’t borders stronger? What about them is more contested? Where is the difficulty? There is a historically-changing, dynamic quality which needs to be developed in such analyses. I believe what is more difficult about borders has to do with their intangible aspects, or ‘virtuality’. We can propose a dynamic, four-part ontology to elucidate the functioning of borders as interfaces and liminal zones with their own internal semiotics and emergent meanings and effects.
As a thing, a border is made up of elements which are concrete, virtual, abstract and probablistic:
This is the first basis of extending the critique of RM. But moreover, a more diverse set of methods than might be supposed is required to research boundary phenomena, which social sciences are ill-equipped to undertake because of their concentration on probabilities rather and abstractions to the exclusion of virtualities…