SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The chapter argues that studying places and identities as a tension yields useful research insights, because it forces us to do three things. First, it forces us to think about places and identities as processes – as continuously configured and re-configured, rather than as predefined, entities. Second, it forces us to think about them as embodied, material processes. The concrete ways in which this tension pans out cannot be known in the abstract or a priori – they must be studied in concrete settings, as they play out in different historical moments, geographical contexts and in relation to different individuals or social groups. It therefore forces us, third, to think about the unequal power relations that shape these tensions, both in their global and structured as well as in their fluid, situated and embodied configurations. Borders can help us to capture both the fixed and the mobile, or, the slipperiness of units that both are and are not.