Monumentalising the Border: Bordering Through Connectivity

Abstract

Existing accounts of the relationship between cosmopolitanism and borders tend to assume that cosmopolitans are able to cross borders with ease, or even live across borders. Consequently, such accounts bring to the fore a cosmopolitan agency that, by definition, renders borders easier to cross but crucially, in doing so, fail to take into account the changing nature of borders. This paper challenges the traditional relationship between borders and cosmopolitanism by focusing on the changing nature of contemporary border processes. Using this as a framework, it is asserted that focusing on post-national border monuments can generate new perspectives on borders. More specifically, in order to understand post-national border monuments, it is argued that borders must be viewed less as markers of division and more in terms of mechanisms of connectivity and encounter. To this end, the paper offers some novel intellectual resources – namely ideas concerning interfaces and scale – that capture the ways in which borders are able to connect well beyond that which is proximate. The paper also considers the rationale behind two recently proposed border monuments - the ‘Star of Caledonia’ situated on the English/Scottish border and the ‘White Horse’ at Ebbsfleet in the south of England – in order to show how certain borders, some of which are located in non-traditional locations, are being (re)configured as visibly welcoming and ‘outward looking’.

KEY WORDS:

• Borders
• Cosmopolitanism
• Border monuments
• Connectivity

Notes

1. Official website blurb: http://www.gretnalandmark.com/uploads/downloads/Landscape_Brief2010.pdf

2. ‘Urban Realm’ 5th July 2011 www.urbanrealm.com/news/2996/_%E2%80%98Star_of_Caledonia%E2%80%99_to_adorn_border_with_England.html

3. Balmond quoted on BBC News 7th July, 2011 http://www.gretnalandmark.com/uploads/downloads/Landscape_Brief2010.pdf

4. Balmond, quoted in Dumfries and Galloway Arts, 2010

5. Jan Hogarth, Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association’s Public Art Manager, quoted in ‘Star of Caledonia artists host Scottish identity debate’ BBC News October 11, 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-15256514

6. Website blurb http://www.gretnalandmark.com/

7. http://www.gretnalandmark.com/

8. Peter Gardner, General Manager of the Gretna Gateway Outlet Village, quoted in Ednie, undated.

9. http://www.gretnalandmark.com/uploads/downloads/Landscape_Brief2010.pdf

10. http://www.gretnalandmark.com/uploads/downloads/Landscape_Brief2010.pdf

11. http://www.gretnalandmark.com/uploads/downloads/Landscape_Brief2010.pdf

12. ‘Giant horse to become £2 m artwork’ BBC News 10 February, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7880889.stm. ‘The Angel of the South’ is a reference to Antony Gormley’s ‘Angel of the North’ near Gateshead possibly the most famous of Britain’s contemporary monuments. According The Guardian newspaper, ‘[w]hether viewed as a spiritually uplifting icon or a phoenix rising from the ashes of the abandoned coal mine beneath it, the Angel of the North has been a joyous addition to the northern landscape’.

13. Planning application summary, official webpage http://www.ebbsfleetlandmark.com/websitefiles/Planning_Summary.pdf

14. None of which have recognised that The White Horse of Kent is the official emblem of that county.

15. ‘Connecting Light’: http://connectinglight.info/

16. ‘Hadrian’s Wall Borders Connected Through Light’, BBC News, 1st September, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19320015

17. Both quotes taken from: ‘Hadrian’s Wall Borders Connected Through Light’, BBC News, 1st September, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19320015