Spaces of the Border - a Practice-theoretical Cultural Studies Perspective in Border Studies

This paper examines how practice-theoretical considerations can be linked with those of a spatial-theoretical nature and translated into a heuristic of spatial analysis from a cultural studies perspective. This question focus results from the understanding that space should be regarded as an emergent aspect of the social and that it is still largely insufficiently defined in Border Studies. Drawing on a number of different spatial concepts, the paper first presents an action-theoretical notion of space and reformulates it in a practice-theoretical framework. It constitutes the point of departure for the development of the spaces of the border model with its analytical categories of social practices, practical knowledge as well as physical-material and social-structural aspects. The diversity of connections between these analytical categories have proven to be heuristically particularly useful