Visual Expressions of States, Culture, and Nature: Borders, Boundary Markers, and Borderscapes Across a Dynamic China and Asia

Abstract

Borders, boundary markers, and borderscapes are diverse, so too are the approaches researchers adopt to analyze and understand the phenomena they shape – and are shaped by. Commonly, geographers analyze borders, boundary markers, and borderscapes by examining particular languages they communicate – both overtly and tacitly. Examples include expressions of state power, sites of conflict and contestation, social and cultural containers, channels that lubricate transnational economic activity, or conduits for energy transmission. Borders, boundary markers, and borderscapes, therefore, can either be highly visible representations or subliminal manifestations of phenomena. Generally, border areas are highly idiosyncratic, due to the myriad ways they are delineated and continually shaped by conditions at local, regional, national, and supranational scales. They illuminate both homogeneity and stark inequality due to unevenness in power dynamics, economic wealth, natural resources, or human capital. Depending on specific context, they may also represent sites of conflict or cooperation, both restricting and facilitating flows of people, goods, and capital. In this sense, borders and boundaries can be understood as a language, for their representations and sha** of phenomena. The focal points of borders are commonly found at international crossing points. It is here physical and visual dimensions of abstract policies manifest, in a range of vastly different ways. Through a photographic essay supported by personal narratives, this chapter will illuminate some of the substantial diversity represented in borders, boundary markers, and borderscapes across China and Asia. The differences represent a range of meanings, objectives, histories, and languages that are communicated and contested in a dynamic, rapidly changing part of the world.