ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the possibilities of a borderless world. The concepts of freedom and border are both polysemic; they possess multiple meanings and can be interpreted in various, creative, and productive ways. The border is an equally ambiguous and polysemic concept as freedom. Liberal theorists have suggested that border regulations are reinforcing birth privilege. Assuming a perspective of borders as a labour market regulator, a market-economy position suggests that border restrictions artificially distort the labour market. There are numerous other positions from which scholars have questioned border controls. Anti-racist positions suggest that border practices enforce a system of global apartheid; feminist positions see borders a mechanism of gender oppression. The realization that they are the product of human practice and the human imagination is a fundamental step towards the transformation of violent and oppressive border practices and imaginations. The progression towards a world of open borders can therefore only occur in a careful, measured, and reflexive way.