Tufi, Stefania (University of Liverpool)

Borderscapes: The de/construction of borders as an everyday practice in contemporary Italy - IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society Tufi, Stefania (University of Liverpool)

The book expands and transforms multidisciplinary scholarship on the border by exposing the normative power of border making and introducing novel perspectives on borders as fluid and changeable spaces of potentiality. Building on work uncovering processes of border de/construction, the monograph highlights the relevance of the borderscapes framework beyond consolidated principles of territoriality. Underpinned by the author’s extensive research into border areas in Italy and beyond, the monograph includes several case studies constituting inflections of the border as experienced at given time-space junctures whilst highlighting that un/bordering is an everyday practice.

The discussions in the different chapters transcend geographical sites to engage with key issues such as agency, affect, authenticity and heritage. Underscoring the discursive valency of bordering practices, and critiquing the colonial pervasiveness of cartographic representations, the book encompasses a methodological trajectory grounded in Linguistic Landscape studies and incorporating ethnographic and new materialist approaches to research. It foregrounds the role of the researcher in writing the borderscape into existence while challenging boundaries between methodology, ontology and epistemology.