Limes: Borders in the Post-Global Era

Abstract

It can be equally affirmed that a boundary is not only division but at the same time also relation. Borders mark a limit, but also the desire of surpassing it. The “classical” boundary is a point of disjunction, and it is of a nature that is sacred as well as functional; it is difficult to conceive it as definitive and unchangeable. At the dawn of the modern world, however, a “new” idea of boundary appears, which is no longer understood in terms of the ancient empire tradition as “defense” or delimitation of a conquered space, but as a structural element of division. This kind of border (spatial, mental, cultural, ideological) is what makes someone a foreigner. Nonetheless, a noncritical perspective of overriding borders could be just as insidious; for example, a hypothetical world State would risk presenting itself as Cosmopolis, as a totalizing maxima civitas. Today, the possibility of a political theory without spatial fractures is being explored. But what condition makes such a connection possible? A solution can be perceived on the level of a “symbolic” reconceptualization of boundaries. The subdivision of the world makes sense only if it is understood as the pre-condition for its being shared.