Psychology of borders: An integral proposal to understand border phenomena in human life

1 Psychology of borders: An integral proposal to understand border phenomena in human life (ACCEPTED VERSION FOR PUBLICATION IN THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY) Full citation: Español, A., & Marsico, G. (2021). Psychology of borders: An integral proposal to understand border phenomena in human life. Theory & Psychology, 31(5), 665- 674. https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543211026756 Non-Commercial and Non-Derivative Uses Only 2 Psychology of borders: An integral proposal to understand the border phenomena in human life Alicia Español Universidad de Sevilla Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9831-2915 Giuseppina Marsico University of Salerno, Italy and Federal University of Bahia, Brazil Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-2814 Abstract. The article aims at presenting a comprehensive proposal for studying the border phenomena in human life that emerges from the contributions that compose this special issue. This theoretical proposal attempts to include the psychological dimension of border phenomenon, an aspect that has not been fully considered in the field of border studies so far. To this end, we, first, present the border concept from cultural psychology point of view. Then we discuss the papers that compose this special issue and their implications in understanding the border phenomenon in human psychological functioning. These papers explore the border notion in its semiotic, discursive, and dialogic dimension. They also help understanding the impact of the border on the identity formation and negotiation as well as the diverse daily border practices that shape the human mind. Finally, we present the main conclusions drawn from this theoretical elaboration and propose new challenges to continue investigating the relationship between psychology and borders. Keywords: border phenomena; cultural psychology; border theory, bordering practices, multi-dimension analysis. Corresponding author: Alicia Español. Departamento de Psicología Experimental, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Sevilla, C/ Camilo José Cela, s/n, 41018 Sevilla, Spain. [email protected] 3 THEORETICAL INTEREST OF BORDERS The borders are present in different spheres of human existence, from macro geopolitical to everyday life settings. In a broader sense, border phenomena refer to any distinction that humans create in different domains of social and psychological life to regulate the relationship between themselves and the fluid, dynamic, and ambiguous environment (Marsico, 2016; Simão, 2016; Valsiner, 2014). They are abundant in everyday life and can be material or immaterial; pre-existing in the physical world (e.g., a coast separating land and sea); cultivated in physical-psychological interactions (e.g., a fence or gate separating one's private home from the public environment); or psychological and practical productions (e.g., social norms as border between "should" and "should not," "personal bubbles," among others). All these specimens share some common theoretical features. They are meaningful to human life. Also, they are the object of internalization/externalization cycle (Español, Marsico, & Tateo, 2018), through which they acquire psychological relevance. Borders can be observed at intra-psychological, interpersonal, and group level. Even if, they act in different psychological and social domain, border phenomena have some common properties: they separate and unify simultaneously (Marsico, 2016); they are both zones of contact and locus of division; they cannot exist separately from the things they delimit. Border phenomenon is the outcome of any act of demarcation (i.e., drawing a border on the soil, built a wall between two Nations, identifying a river as a frontier between two countries, setting the age limit for entering the school, among others) that produces a dynamic structure. The border is not an isolated entity, but it is a part of a dynamic system that is made of three subparts: one side, the border, and the other side (A<>borders<>B) (Herbst, 1976; Tateo, 2016, Marsico & Tateo, 2017). Border phenomena include then the border, but they are not limited to the border itself. THE CURRENT DEBATE As a human creation, borders have been studied by social sciences, (e.g., anthropology, sociology, political sciences, geography or history), mainly with an empirical focus. In recent years, many works have encouraged the inclusion of various dimensions of the phenomenon in border analysis. (Brambilla, 2015; Johnson et al., 2011; Scott, 2020a). However, border phenomena have been conceived mainly based on topological distinctions among different and adjacent regions with scarce attention to the people who live on the borders (Brambilla, 2007), and even less to the psychological dimensions implied in the process of border-making in mind and society. 4 Unfortunately, the different fields of border studies have not yet led to a theoretical framework able to account for the relationship between macro and microanalysis of border dynamics. Psychological sciences have only recently tried to systematize a theoretical elaboration about this topic (Kullasepp & Marsico, 2021). In the last few years cultural psychology has fostered the elaboration of border phenomena as complex systems made of subparts (demarcation, demarcated areas, and relationships among them over time) (Marsico & Varzi, 2016). In addition, cultural psychology pointed out some general systemic features as part of any border phenomena that could range from borders between nation-states; to those between one's house and another in the neighbor; or from border between an ethnic group and another to that one which operate at intra-pyshcological level (Tateo et al., 2018). It is time to start a solid debate about border related situations, from which we can elaborate generalizable conclusions that lead to a high-level theoretical model of borders from a cultural psychological perspective. BUILDING AN ABSTRACT MODEL OF BORDER IN PSYCHOLOGY The present work draws on the interdisciplinary knowledge produced in social sciences to propose a theoretical discussion about borders in psychology. These may become the basis for an abstract model of "border" that can be heuristically powerful in psychological sciences. The special issue aims to elaborate such an integrated model of border construction and regulation, which defines the structural and functional components of a border phenomenon in the psychological realm. The articles in this special issue try to answer the following questions: How can psychology help to understand border phenomena? How borders become relevant in our daily life? How do borders work at psychological level? Can we talk about the "psychology of borders"? We believe that psychology may contribute to reflect on the borders in human lives as culturally constructed objects. The common thread between the papers is the analysis of the fencing nature of the human being and its interpersonal and intrapersonal implications. Borders are here investigated as material (walls, fences, or gates) and immaterial artifacts (set of rules or signs) both regulating and guiding our concrete and psychological life. The contributions of the special issue explore three different dimensions of borders in psychology: a) Border in mind: Intra-psychological dimension of border: b) Border as regulatory semiotic and dialogical process; and c) Bordering practices at social level: Inter-psychological dimension of border (Figure 1). 5 Figure 1. The border phenomenon and psychological processes discussed in the papers Border in mind: Intra-psychological dimension of border One of the theoretical endeavors of this special issue it to illuminate how borders operate in human psyche. The works of Español, de la Mata, & Cornejo (2021) and Kullasepp (2021) present different approaches that show the internalized borders and their role in constructing identity. The two papers nicely show how the inter-psychological border practices become a constituent part of the intra-psychological space, shaping the human mind. Español, de la Mata, and Cornejo (2021) examine the fundamental role of identity narratives as essential elements to interconnect the bordering practices that occur at the social level with those reflected in the construction of self. Based on the analysis of previous works on identity in international borders area, the authors discuss identity construction as a process of dialogic bordering between the self and the others. In the conclusions the authors propose to study identity construction as border experience during life course (de la Mata, Español, Matías-García, Lojo Ballesta, & del Villar-Toribio, in press; Marsico & Tateo, 2017; Mele, Español, Carvalho, & Marsico, 2021). Those conclusions allow to expand the concept of border experiences in different spheres of human development. Kullasepp (2021) presents an explanation of intra-psychological construction of Estonian identity as a semiotic process of border construction between us and "the other." Drawing on the Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans, 2001), the author explores the various I-positions related to collective and past experiences in the border construction of national identity. In addition, the Lawrence & Valsiner’ s laminal model (2003) has been further elaborated to account for the process of internalization and integration of social messages in process of identity definition. On the basis of this framework the author proposes a scheme of national identity formation conceptualized 6 as a complex result of affective process linked with the negotiation of intra-psychological borders. This work helps to provide a psychological response to national identity construction processes that has been already investigated by other social sciences. The conclusions of this paper show how national identities appear to be underpinned by border practices and by individual and collective narratives (Anderson, 1993; Wilson & Donnan, 1998). The processes of internalizing those practices conveys the feelings of belonging to the group and the national territory. Border as a regulatory semiotic and dialogical process. The second theoretical effort of this special issue is to understand how the border operates in regulating the psychological functioning. In this vein, the works of Tateo and Marsico (2021), Picione (2020), and Haye and González (2020) highlight the semiotic, dialogic, and discursive aspects that contribute to the constitution of the border in the psychological and social sphere. These semiotic and discursive conceptions offer conceptual models of border-making and border-regulating process in different everyday practices, helping us to understand the interaction between parts that constitute the whole system. Tateo and Marsico (2021) bring an innovative proposal on the bordering process understood as a semiotic psychological functioning process. Based on the analysis of the conceptual similarities between semiosis and border-making, they propose a general genetic law on the bordering development in human development. Initially, borders are conceived as tools established in human inter-psychological activities and then internalized to regulate psychological functioning and the relationship with other humans and with the environment. To this end, diverse everyday signs function as borders guiding human development. This proposal offers a guide to search for what might be seen as a border (Johnson et al., 2011) and focus the attention on different signs in our everyday life from the perspective of border functioning. Picione (2020) analyzes borders from different perspectives (semiotics, psychoanalytical, psychological, and topological) and discusses three ways to conceptualize them: rigid borders, permeable borders, and topological borders of the Möebius strip type. The latter, elaborated by the author, is a novel contribution that works on the edge of semiotics and border studies. Based on the mathematical model of the Möebius strip, the author proposes a semiotic border system that combines the two dimensions of the sign as a relation and as an entity. This model helps to understand the human psyche' systematic functioning and it offers support for studying the discontinuity 7 between opposites as well as the continuous transformations of the dynamic relations. The two semiotic processes are both involved in the construction of meanings in human experience. Finally, Haye and González (2020) discuss Vološinov and Bakhtin's dialogical theory of discourse and its important implications for the interconnection of border and culture. The authors attempt to reverse the conception of unitary cultures and inter-group contact in psychology. Following Vološinov and Bakhtin's discursive theory, the difference between groups does not pre-exist to the configuration of different groups but it is the result of the border work that the society cultivates within subjects. Thus, border work processes are performed in discourse, from the continuous definition of the other and anticipatory reaction to the other in social interaction. Therefore, this proposal urges us to understand borders as discursive phenomena and agents' interaction in an in-between space of dialogicity (Marsico, 2011) while prioritizing interlocutors' practices as bordercreating agents (Brambilla, 2007; Español et al., 2018). Bordering practices at the social level: Inter-psychological dimension of border The last theoretical challenge is to understand how border practices impact the construction of meanings that people develop about the world around them and that will become, then, part of the intra-psychological world. The works of Nugin and Palang (2020), Parellada, Carretero and Rodríguez-Moneo (2020), and Scott (2020b) focus on some everyday practices such as formal history education, urban narratives, and land distribution as arenas of border-creation in the everyday social sphere. Parellada, Carretero, and Rodríguez-Moneo (2020) focus on formal education as a means for the transmission of official discourses on the construction of national borders. Based on the analysis of history textbooks in Argentina, the authors pay attention to how erroneous perceptions about borders are taught and how they are internalized, which justify historical discourses on territorial primacy that justify current social conducts. Together with other practices that enhance certain symbols, monuments, or selected fragments of history (Fernando del Canto & Armesto, 2017; Ferrer-Gallardo, Albet-Mas, & Espiñeira, 2014), such educational interventions prioritize specific reading of historical facts in order to justify one or another border practices. Thus, educational practices are conceived as bordering artifacts of production and consumption of national identity. In the same vein, Nugin and Palang (2020) emphasize the ideological aspect of everyday practices in constructing borders. Based on the case of land redistribution in Estonia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the authors outline a theoretical proposal where ideology, identity, daily actions and law procedure contribute to shaping borders during 8 the territory distribution. This paper highlights the complex interconnection of ideological practices and the social and political discourses and the intimate sense of belonging involved in land distribution process. Belonging, understood as a psychological phenomenon, is "an essential human fiber necessary to connect individuals and groups to the space that they occupy, and to the territory that they own and inhabit" (Konrad, 2020, p. 122). To understand such feelings of belonging, this paper analyze several psychosocial dimensions and their ideological implications in negotiating legal issues in everyday lives. Lastly, James W. Scott (2020b) explores the border-making processes in urban space. From the analysis of narratives about two neighborhoods located in Berlin and Warsaw, the author discusses the processes of meaning-making that shape appropriation and reappropriation of cities by their inhabitants. The border-making process involves narratives of change and continuity that reveal much about how places function— or fail to function—as communities. This study indicates how interpersonal narratives are being constructed about the interactions with and experiences of urban transformation and their specific social and spatial manifestations. The results help to conceptualize urban change in terms of spaces of cultural possibilities, lifestyle alternatives and political contestations. These results, together with the analysis of mobility (Jovchelovitch, Sanguineti, Nogueira, & Priego-Hernández, 2020) or affective states in urban spaces (Tateo & Marsico, 2019), provides tools to rethink the relationship between bordering process, embodied experience of urban living. CONLCUDING REMARKS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES This special issue offers a theoretical corpus that facilitates the understanding the bordering process as it operates at interpersonal and intrapsychological level, shaping the human mind. The articles here presented provides concepts and theoretical models that illuminate this interrelation in a systemic dynamic fashion. They present a set of theoretical dimensions to investigate the interdependence of the system components that are at the work in the border phenomena. We claim that a "psychology of border" cannot exits apart from border studies (Newman & Paasi, 1998; Laine, 2021), Yet border studies need to be enriched by the psychological approach's to address the impact of the border phenomenon on human processes and the ordinary complexity of borders and bordering processes. This special issue opens the door also to new challenges on the relationship between border and psychology. Among them, we could further explore the processes of 9 belonging and their impact at the identity level. The inclusion of subjective aspects on place attachment (de Carvalho & Cornejo, 2018) might help examining the psychological processes in the construction of borders and of the sense of belonging. Also, it is worth to investigate into how borders are established, managed, or eliminated in human development transitional processes, such as motherhood and fatherhood, transgender experiences, or professional developments, among others. In this vein borders would be analyzed in its continuous movement (Konrad, 2015), as a constitutive dimension of the transforming process itself. This continuous movement, in turn, entails a methodological challenge, given the need to encompass the investigation of this dynamic process. In this sense, it becomes crucial to inquire about methodological proposals (Sheller & Urry, 2006) that allow to apprehend the transformations of the border and by the borders during the psychological life transitions. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are very grateful to Jaan Valsiner for his priceless support during the production of the special issue. REFERENCES Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands/ La frontera: The new Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Brambilla, C. (2007). Borders and identities/border identities: The Angola-Namibia border and the plurivocality of the Kwanyama identity. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 22(2), 21–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2007.9695675 Brambilla, C. (2015). Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept. Geopolitics, 20(1), 14–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2014.884561 de Carvalho, L. P., & Cornejo, M. (2018). 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