Borders resurgent: towards a post-Covid-19 global border regime?

ABSTRACT

An immediate political geographic consequence of the global pandemic is the rapid imposition of national and subnational borders, particularly where cross-boundary openness and integration was prevalent. Borders are being reinvigorated as a strategy to contain the virus, which securitizes daily life beyond traditional border sites. We see this resurgence as indicating a new global border regime which is manifest at a variety of scales and will likely outlive the pandemic. Our discussion centers on several possible implications of this process, including further restrictions on immigration and movement, a heightened politics of regionalism, and an expansion of geographic tracking and surveillance.

KEYWORDS:

• Borders
• Covid-19
• pandemic
• territory

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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Steven M. Radil

Steven M. Radil is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Idaho, USA. He is a political geographer that researches the spatialities of political violence, including the diffusion of war, the territoriality of civil wars, insurgencies, and terrorism, and the militarization of law enforcement. He has regional expertise in East and West Africa and is the co-author of The geography of conflict in North and West Africa (OECD, 2020).

Jaume Castan Pinos

Jaume Castan Pinos is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark, and a visiting researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. His academic interests are framed by ethno-territorial conflicts, borders, sovereignty and political violence. He has conducted extensive research in/on Catalonia, North Africa and former Yugoslavia. He is the author of Kosovo and the collateral effects of humanitarian intervention (Routledge, 2019).

Thomas Ptak

Thomas Ptak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Idaho. His scholarly interests occupy an intersecting space where border, energy, China and environmental studies are synergized through principles of geography. He has spent time researching China's border areas, particularly in the southwest province of Yunnan.