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Abstract
This article investigates the diverse relations of local residents with the Vermont–Québec border. The research is situated in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, a predominantly rural area with myriad ties to Québec. Certain local residents are set apart from other residents and individuals not residing in the border region by the centrality of the border to their personal identities and modes of action. They also understand the border and border-related activities using a different set of logics. This can lead to misunderstandings and tensions, particularly surrounding policy changes concerning border regulations. This article concludes that, while not recognized as an identity group, these individuals do indeed form a separate category with particular, shared characteristics that will be unequally impacted by future social and policy changes on the border. Though much has been written on borders in general, and US borders in particular, this area has been understudied and offers a specific set of characteristics of interest to border theory as a whole.
Acknowledgements
Financial support from the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Thomas K. Park, Thérèse de Vet, and Diane Austin for their advice and assistance on this project since its beginnings. Sections of this work appeared in an earlier form in my 2006 Masters' thesis: Towards a Vermont–Québec Border Study: Interviews from the Northeast Kingdom (Tucson, Arizona). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2008 Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting, my thanks to James Greenberg, Josiah Heyman and the other participants on the panel for their suggestions and encouragement. Finally, I would like to show my appreciation for Kacy Hollenback for her feedback on early drafts.
Notes
In this I vary considerably from Nevins (Citation2002). For the purposes of this case study, I find it more important to preserve the concept of boundaries as tied to cultural and ethnic groups and separate from that of borders.
Though governmental policy varies in its interpretation and implementation and governments should not be treated as monolithic entities, they will not receive the consideration they are due here. Governments are exceedingly difficult to study, as noted by Heyman (Citation1995), and fall outside the purview of the project at hand.