ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the changing meanings of territoriality and state boundaries in a situation where the processes of globalisation are said to be increasing all forms of economic, political and cultural links and reducing the role of boundaries and state sovereignty (de-territorialisation), but where nationalism and ethno-regionalism seem concomitantly to be establishing new boundaries and giving rise to conflicts between social groups (re-territorialisation). Instead of perceiving boundaries merely as fixed products of the modernist project, this article aims at conceptualising them as social processes. This means that instead of analysing how boundaries distinguish social entities, we should concentrate on how social action and discourse produce diverging, continually changing meanings for boundaries and how these are then used as instruments or mediums of social distinction. The changing meanings of the Finnish-Russian border are used as empirical illustrations of this approach. The history of this border suggests that instead of understanding the idea of territoriality as one form of control used in strictly bounded territorial units, several forms of territoriality exist concomitantly in diverging social practices and discourses.
