ABSTRACT
This chapter advances the case that the border is a prime site for connecting individuals to the world, bringing them into contact with others and causing them to reassess their relations with the communities to which they may or may not belong. As outlined in this chapter, the border is best thought of as a ‘quilting point’ which makes the cosmopolitan experience a real possibility; making connectedness possible, encouraging contact with others and negotiations of difference. The chapter then proceeds to explore in some detail the networking connectivity of borders and offers two short case studies Melton Mowbray and Calais of borders-as-connectivity and more specifically of the ways in which citizens can construct borders or utilize bordering opportunities in order to connect to the world. While conventional understandings of the border have tended to prevent or manage connectivity, the people argue that the same borders can facilitate connections.
