ABSTRACT

To a mind not trained in academic subjects like political geography or international law there are little differences between the terms border, frontier and boundary. Fascinated by impressive lip forward in information technology of recent decades some seem to have gone so far in their socio-political philosophizing of spatial concepts related to matters of state and territory as to declare the end of all that is related to state, territory, boundary, and geography much the same way as Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history in the 1990s (1). Some seem to have gone even further in their fascination of these developments as confusing themselves between actual meanings of the concepts related to human space and thinking of human, economic, political and spatial barriers in terms of geographical border. The political geographer however, cannot be too careful in his use of geographical concepts. To him (her) the terms border, boundary and frontier constitute for a three-dimensional spatial concept that deals with the task of defining peripheries of the territories of a given state. In a recent slogan advertised in CNN network (February 2011) individuals of varying ethnic/national background appear to invite viewers to ‘go beyond borders’. But listening to their reasoning no doubt remains that they mean to encourage their viewers to cross human, economic, political, and geographical barriers. Otherwise not even CNN can invite its international viewers to cross US boundaries or borders to its headquarters in Washington without obtaining proper visa permission from US border authorities.