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Elements for a Theory of the Frontier

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Claude Raffestin
Claude Raffestin*
Affiliation:
University of Geneva
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“Frontier” is included in the general category of “limit” (limes: a road bordering a field). But what is at the origin of limit, frontier? An authority, a power that can exercise “the social function of ritual and social significance of the line, the limit whose ritual legitimizes passage, transgression” (Bourdieu, 1982, p. 121). The limit, a traced line, sets up an order that is not only spatial but temporal, since it not only separates a “this side” from a “that side” but also a “before” and an “after”. This dual nature of the limit is at work in the myth of the founding of Rome. Any limit, any frontier, is intentional: it proceeds from a will; it is never arbitrary. Its legitimacy was originally established by a religious ritual and later, by a political procedure.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 34 , Issue 134 , June 1986 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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