Summary: | Borders remain associated to conflict in traditional geopolitical representations. This issue of L’Espace politique offers to question the current formulation of this relationship, adding to it a reflexion on peace, a notion much less explored by political geography. It first engages with the ongoing importance of power relations at borders, which Westphalian character persists while reconfiguring itself. It then assesses, through various case sutides, a world in which states have lost their monopoly over border management. Other stakeholders (international, regional or local actors) take a growing share of influence in this domain, becoming alternativement factors of violence or truce. Finally, the volume comes back to the influence of social practises and bottom-up initiatives in the everyday construction of borders, which in turn can endorse a pacific or conflictual.
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