ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a geographical reading of the southernmost point of so-called continental Europe: Punta Tarifa. Punta Tarifa is situated right on the Strait of Gibraltar, in an extreme post of Europe, in one of its meridional peripheries. But some of its daily practices reveal some of the major weaknesses of central EU policies. The area of Punta Tarifa is a, kind of human made/socially constructed, peninsula, which is situated at the south end of another peninsula, the Iberian Peninsula, which is in its turn situated at the south end of further peninsula, Europe. Punta Tarifa is, in fact, a multi-scalar frontier, where different agents and interests merge. The borderscape of Punta Tarifa helps to understand present day changes in border forms, functions and practices, which are now right at the centre of the agenda of border studies: where there seems to be a consensus in the understanding of borders no longer as peripheral matters but as nuclear political processes.
