ABSTRACT
A border drawn on a map is an abstract idea – a thin line that defines where one country's sovereignty ends and another begins. However, what that line creates on the ground is a messy, dynamic human–ecological liminal zone, the borderland (or border sea). While some borderlands are densely populated urban frontiers built up to serve cross-border trade and exchange, it is more often the case that borderlands are hinterlands, poorly defined spaces somewhere in between – in between urban centres, cultures, watersheds and so on – sometimes almost forgotten by the state, with little attention and fewer services. As a result, particularly in low- and middle- income countries, borderlands are often inaccessible, lack both infrastructure and the rule of law, and have little institutional development.
