Political value of the borders: Practices and senses

Abstract

The notion of frontier in this article is both a means to articulate the methodology and a conceptual category. When used to analyze areas of spatial and symbolic dispute, it allows inquiries into existing tensions among some rural populations in Argentina and Paraguay as they interact with extraterritorial spaces, actors and organisms. Frontier becomes relevant when considered both an area histor-ically-signified by transformations and exchanges (of transit, in-between space and mutual questionings) but also where situations of violence, dispossession, subjugation and inequality take place. Both processes install demarcations and barriers. The main tension analyzed is about space, the significance given to it by populations and their right to decide about the way they want to live their lives. This ratifies the fertility of the concept and makes evident that certain current tensions originate in long-standing conflicts that are difficult to resolve as local events are determined globally.