Mugarik ez! Ritual negation of the border in the basque country

Leizaola, Aitzpea

http://hdl.handle.net/10284/11007

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Authors

Leizaola, Aitzpea

Abstract(s)

The Basque Country is a good example of how the policies of nation-states can contradict EU policies, particularly in a Europe now nominally 'without frontiers', as in the case of the maintenance of borders despite their official shut down. Borders are far from disappearing in the Basque Country. Not only do they continue to have, major symbolic significance, but control over the border area remains an important issue for adjacent nation-states, which have still in recent times periodically closed border posts. At the same time, the actual porosity of the border, based on the maintenance of historical ties across it and on the recent increase of cross-border projects, compromises any attempt at control. In this paper I argue that borders still are contested places, frontiers in the original sense of the word, front-lines where nation-states battle for their maintenance despite European integration, and where nations divided by such frontiers, as the Basque Country, struggle for their disappearance, not only in a discursive way, but also through symbolic actions.