Beyond the “Lettered Border”: Towards a New Comparative Horizon in Border Studies of the European Union and Latin America

Abstract

A malaise hovers over the erstwhile field of border studies. Symptoms of this condition fester on a political as well as theoretical plane, and can be located in a normative vacillation which impedes the discipline from distinguishing between spectacular forms of bordering that only serve to reproduce the repressive function of borders (e.g., Us/Them), and those that might point towards alternative roles for bordering practices that are more transductive and mediatory of socio-spatial relations. Proceeding along a road less travelled, this essay proposes to explore the latter option by rethinking the geo-historical relation between Europe and Latin America, conceived as the evolution of a “lettered border”. Inspired by the work of Ángel Rama, the author reveals a process of ceaseless comparative bordering, with origins in the very first colonial treaties and maps between European powers, whose postcolonial echoes continue to resonate in an internal/external border dialectic between both continents. By way of a border and transatlantic “rhythmanalyse”, the article concludes by proposing another way of seeing the borders of Europe and Latin America, viewed not so much as lines separating strongly differentiated geopolitical entities, but as horizons that demarcate a co-produced and shared modernity.