With the United Kingdom’s Brexit, Northern Ireland will also have to leave the EU – although most people here want to stay in the European Union. There is great concern that a hard border could revive the Northern Ireland conflict. Especially as the border region already offers few prospects. Toby Binder’s photo series “Wee Muckers” accompanies teenagers from six different Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods of Belfast and offers a glimpse into the everyday life of a whole generation.
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»If I had been born at the top of my street, behind the corrugated-iron border, I would have been British. Incredible to think. My whole idea of myself, the attachments made to a culture, heritage, religion, nationalism and politics are all an accident of birth. I was one street away from being born my ‘enemy’«. Paul McVeigh, Belfast-born writer and author of the novel ‘The Good Son’.
Old conflicts may recur, compromising the youth’s future prospects
Photographer Toby Binder has been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. After the Brexit referendum he focussed his work on Belfast in Northern Ireland. There is a serious concern that Brexit will threaten the Peace Agreement of 1998 that ended the armed conflict between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists who live in homogeneous neighborhoods that are divided by walls till today. Old conflicts may recur, compromising the youth’s future prospects.
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Nevertheless, being underage, most teenagers were not allowed to vote in the referendum. Problems they struggle with are similar – no matter which side they live on. And whatever the effects of Brexit will be, it‘s very likely that they will strike especially young people from both communities.
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Whatever comes of Brexit, the ramifications will be felt by communities on both sides
The images of the project “Youth of Belfast” were photographed in six different neighborhoods of Belfast. Binder’s photo essay depicts the ubiquity of unemployment, drug crime, and violence afflicting Belfast’s youth, whether they live on one side of the “Peace Wall” or the other. Whatever comes of Brexit, the ramifications will be felt by communities on both sides. The project accompanies teenagers in six different Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods, providing an intimate and immediate insight into the daily lives of a whole generation.
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“Wee Muckers – Youth of Belfast” is a long term photography work by Toby Binder. The hard cover book is published by German Kehrer Verlag.
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The topos issue 104 deals with the topic “border” from different perspectives and sheds light on the impact borders have on people, political processes, landscapes and urban space.
This year the Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Conference was held in April in San Diego, California, as part of the Western Social Science Association Annual Conference. With topics ranging from water management to globalization, gender, securitization, education, human rights, governance, and infrastructure, and research focusing on borders areas all over the world, the conference offered several perspectives on what border scholars are focusing on today.
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With the conference taking place in San Diego and moving to Tijuana for the final day, it was not surprising that the border between the U.S. and Mexico received special attention during the event. The first excursion, organized jointly by the Association for Borderlands Studies and the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies of the University of California, San Diego, provided the participants with first-hand experience of the context interested by most of the following days’ discussions. Former California State Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny guided the conference participants in an intense day of exploration and professional reports from those who experience the border daily.
Starting point was the Cross Border Xpress (CBX), an airport terminal in the U.S. with a secure bridge over the border to the Tijuana International Airport. Designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, the terminal building features elements of Mexican architecture. The bridge, which is the only pedestrian crossing subject to a fee, can be accessed only by people with a flight ticket, but it has promoted cross-border cooperation between the two countries and continues to facilitate traveling for people who need to reach various destinations in Mexico from the United States.
Although preposterous marks of securitization continue to permeate the border experience, like the fence of barbed wire marking where the line of the border passes over the roof of the bridge, CBX is an economic success. Future developments will include two hotels, a restaurant, a convention center, and additional parking.
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How to change the narrative of the border space?
The interesting case of this private border-crossing infrastructure was discussed during a panel on various dimensions of cross-border synergies. Talking about the concept of binational transfrontier metropolis, Lawrence Herzog highlighted the potential role of placemaking in the urban design of the cross-border landscape to activate the border space and change the narrative of alien, militarized space we witness today. Yet, while the CBX is certainly normalizing and reframing the space of the border, it belongs to the group of profit-driven practices trying to represent the border in a brighter light, a phenomenon well described in the same panel by Christophe Sohn. The question remains: How can we change the narrative of the border space through placemaking without letting profit-driven, business-like activities monopolize such a culturally rich venue of exchange?
After CBX, the next point of the guided tour was the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, where long lines of trucks were waiting to cross the border. The waiting times have recently grown exponentially in several ports of entry because hundreds of Customs and Border Protection officers were reassigned to Border Patrol in order to help dealing with the migrants crisis. Some say the actual reason behind this measure is to create a feeling of emergency at the border, and to generate dissent around the arrival of migrants from Central America. These motives are always very hard to prove, although it is undeniable that people’s perception of migratory phenomena has an extremely important role in the way they are dealt with by political authorities.
Space to talk about fears and expectations
During a keynote about the Migrant Caravan from Central America, Olivia T. Ruiz Marrujo described the response of local residents to the caravan’s arrival. In particular, she made a very poignant comparison between the arrival to Tijuana, where the population was not informed and the authorities were unprepared to deal with the situation, and the arrival to Piedra Negras, where the residents were informed and the authorities well organized. In the first case a narrative of danger spread, with language reminiscent of Trump’s, with meetings held on how to protect local families from the caravan. Even the authorities associated migrants with criminals. In the second case, the response was very well coordinated and enough spaces were made available to welcome the migrants. The response of locals was in turn much more positive. She concluded her keynote by saying that, if something was to be learned from the experience in Tijuana, is that it is really important to pay attention to people’s perception: in particular, authorities should make sure that local residents do not see migrants as opponents in a zero-sum game of resource acquisition. They should provide information, share what they know about the situation, and give people space to talk about their fears and expectations. Finally, they should pay attention to social media, keeping an eye on what people are sharing and how they are reacting.
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Role of water as a commodity
Finally, the excursion took the participants to the Tijuana River Watershed, where they had the opportunity to learn more about the importance of the transborder water management system in maintaining the biodiversity of the estuary. This area was also the object of several panels during the conference, touching on topics of great relevance today, not only from the perspective of border studies but also sustainability and globalization, providing historical perspectives on water management and the role of water as a commodity. The presentations highlighted how, the scarcer water becomes, the more violent are the conflicts people start in order to access it.
What the field of border studies is missing
Unfortunately, although the panels were cleverly combining different perspectives, their highly theoretical approaches often rendered exchanges difficult. Whenever a less academic approach was presented, the conversation immediately became more lively and fruitful, highlighting precisely what the field of border studies is missing today. The very notion of border requires a more integrated approach: non-academic professionals should be part of the discussion, both as speakers and audiences.
It is time to cross the border of academia
Although the ABS conference is definitely making an effort to become more inclusive in its selection of participants by welcoming researches not affiliated to universities, academic conferences remain largely unaccessible. This is due mainly to economic barriers: fees, flight tickets, and hotels in usually expensive locations discourage those who are not granted a research budget. Yet, financial issues might not be the only reason. If one is not a scholar in a conventional sense, one is unlikely to even hear about this kind of events.
If academic fields such as border studies wish to make an impact on the real world, it is time to cross the border of academia and organize events that foster collaboration and exchange between scholars, politicians, designers, educators, technicians, and other professionals.
What happens in that very special moment in urban space when a situation is about to, but hasn’t yet happened? These moments that consist of boundaries between time, space and object only last for a few seconds and yet feel as if they were frozen in time. Wei Chang, a photographer based in Taipei portrays cityscapes and people who become involved with urban landscapes. Although the photos of this series often show busy places, Wei Chang tries to find quite moments in those scenes. There is no specific action, people seem anonymous, emotionless, even faceless. But within this borderline anonymity, she succeeds in giving the city and its users importance. If only for a moment.
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Find out more about Topos #104 Borders.
The whole world is talking about borders. Whether or not globalization is to blame – border spaces and the politics of bordering dominate current political debates and have done so for quite a while, even before Donald Trump came along. Alexander Gutzmer, editorial manager of the monthly architecture magazine Der Baumeister wrote a book on the topic. He describes the different ways in which borders are reflected upon, mediatized, and instrumentalized in political ways, with the border between Mexico and the USA as prime example. He demonstrates that borders are not only misused for implementing subversive policies but also enable the creation of art with political relevance. Gutzmer will read from his book and in follow discuss his findings with Anja Koller, editor of the urban landscape magazine Topos. The recent issue of Topos is dedicated to the topic of borders, too.
Important Facts
Where: Architekturgalerie München im Bunker, Blumenstraße 22, 80331 Munich
When: 15 October 2018, 7 pm
The first week of July 2018 a design-build workshop took place in Belmonte Calabro to explore migratory phenomena in the Mediterranean area. Italy that aimed at responding to one of the greatest European challenges in a small town that, abandoned by its local residents, is becoming home to a new wave of migrants who travel across the Mediterranean to Italy. Promoted by the cultural association Le Seppie and made in collaboration with Orizzontale and London Metropolitan University, it contributed to redesigning the Italian border between migration and abandonment.
An interview with Rita Adamo, one of the co-founder of Le Seppie:
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How has the workshop become an attempt at the collective rewriting of space?
We chose the Municipal Library of Belmonte Calabro as the object of our investigation. We turned it from a forgotten space into a Wonder Living Room, an exhibition space created to display sentimental and historical objects. A place of connection between one migration and another. We aimed to deliver to new and old inhabitants a greater awareness of the territory and its cultural heritage, designing a device that, by celebrating cultural differences, actually encourages exchanges between different communities.
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Who were the guests in this year’s edition?
The workshop was made in collaboration with London Metropolitan University and with the architects at Orizzontale, together with refugees from the neighboring villages of Amantea, San Pietro d’Amantea and Longobardi and the inhabitants of Belmonte.
What was your intention in redesigning the city library?
Our intention to redesign the city’s library is based on the objective of stimulating conversation and dialogue between the local inhabitants, the perceptions of recent migrants and refugees in Calabria and other visitors such as the group of international participants of Crossings 2018. The ambition is to imagine a new cultural identity for Belmonte that could contribute to a more active use of the municipal library and the repopulation of the village by more diverse demographies. Located beneath the municipal library, the chosen space is currently underused, despite its excellent location and the many possibilities that its large opening on the city’s main square offers. By opening this library/museum room onto the square, we hope to expand the possibilities of using this central part of the city, allowing it to host more specific activities such as cooking and serving food, screenings, music, debates and so on.
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What added value does this workshop bring to volunteers, students and migrants?
Involving participants from the local Italian context, refugees and international participants, our common goal is to challenge the decline of those places. The program offers a very rich experience that includes individual growth, social and cultural awareness, with an exposure to the arts and crafts as well. This experience creates a very different kind of bond with the village, where both visitors and locals feel committed to the village’s situation, along with the incentive that implies to return to see the evolution, take part in its development, or launch new initiatives!
