Estudios Fronterizos Revista

Rural territorial conflicts in the interethnic and intercultural borders of three border departments of Colombia

Allan Bolívar Lobato — 2025-09-08

The article analyzes rural territorial conflicts on interethnic and intercultural borderlands in La Guajira, Vichada, and Putumayo in Colombia, focusing on developments from the past two decades. The objectives are to review and adopt concepts of borders linked to identities, territorial planning and governance; to classify, weight and geolocate conflicts using the National Land Agency (ANT, Spanish acronym of Agencia Nacional de Tierras) database; and to conduct a comparative analysis to identify similarities, differences and common causalities. Methodologically, the study unfolds in two stages: first, articulating the conceptual framework with the ANT database updated to August 2024; second, a comparative analysis based on typological classifications, georeferencing and weighting. Results show that conflicts concentrate in community-private and intercultural disputes, associated with overlapping territorialities, extractivism, the presence of armed actors and institutional shortcomings. It is concluded that transforming these conflicts requires strengthening intercultural governance and institutional coordination to ensure more equitable and sustainable territorial arrangements.

Norte de Santander: illegal arms trafficking and border closure, 2015-2022

Jorge Alonso Isaza Quebrada — 2025-08-25

From the perspective of security studies, and with a pragmatic and constructivist theoretical approach, this article analyzes the characteristics of illegal arms trafficking in Norte de Santander (Colombia) during the border closure (2015-2022), in order to understand its evolution and determine the impact of the border closure on this crime. Using a mixed methodology, data from the Global Study on Firearms Trafficking 2020, statistics on non-administrative arms seizures by the Colombian National Police, and interviews with National Army officers who served in this region during the period studied were used. The results show that trafficking persisted through unofficial routes, and that corruption in sectors of the Venezuelan armed forces was key to the continuation of this crime. Revolvers and shotguns prevail in the seizures, especially concentrated in border municipalities such as San José de Cúcuta, Tibú and Puerto Santander.

The eurocity Puerta de Europa. Cross-border cooperation in a depopulated rural area

María Isabel Martín Jiménez — 2025-08-11

The study aims to determine the relevance of the eurocity model for cooperation based on the creation process between 2019 and 2023, of the most recent of the seven eurocities established on the Spanish-Portuguese border, called Puerta de Europa and comprising the Portuguese concelho of Almeida, the freguesia of Vilar Formoso and the Spanish municipalities of Fuentes de Oñoro and Ciudad Rodrigo. An analytical methodology was followed, with the following results: the creation process is analysed with particular attention to problems of how to cope with democratic decline, a lack of administrative capacity, and the loss of transit of persons and goods due to the opening of the E-80 highway link. The paper concludes that Puerta de Europa shows structural weaknesses concerning cross-border development in a depopulating area.

Lexical and conceptual resources to identify and delimit differences between transborder and border

Alejandro Benedetti — 2025-06-17

The article explores the concepts of border and transborder within Fronterology by analyzing their lexical and conceptual evolution. It highlights the importance of distinguishing between border and transborder. Prefixes such as trans-, cis-, inter-, and circum- are examined to construct neologisms that describe various spatial relations, considered key to understanding the transborder phenomenon. Additionally, it emphasizes the need for a multiscale and multidimensional approach to comprehend the complexity of the relationships that emerge from the border, suggesting that they are processes in constant redefinition.

Capital hits bottom: deep-sea mining representations as a resource frontier

Sebastián Rodríguez Leiva — 2025-06-02

This article aims to analyze the central discourses present in narratives about deep-sea mining, to understand what representations are being constituted of the ocean floor and its minerals. With a methodology based on qualitative content analysis applied to grey literature, including media and social networks published in the period from June 2021 to June 2024, the results show that the themes of blue economy, governance and biodiversity are connected to resource frontier dynamics such as the need to exploit other sources, govern resources and present the ocean floor as a zone of opportunity. Although it is recognized that some issues may be missing, the sample illustrates the characteristics of the most dominant and recurrent positions on deep-sea mining. These findings allow to nurture the conceptual discussion and open questions about the creation of new extraction spaces at a global level.

The narrative identity dimension in transnational migrations: the Brazilian case in Santiago, Chile

Ariany da Silva Villar — 2025-05-15

This study analyzes the narrative identity dimension related to transnational migration through the case of Brazilian migrants in Santiago, Chile. Using a phenomenological-hermeneutic research approach, we collected life stories, conducted in-depth interviews and utilized photovoice with Brazilians who have been living in the Chilean capital for at least one year. The data were collected in 2018 and 2019 and were analyzed using thematic content analysis with the help of MaxQDA 2020 software. Our findings reveal that the recognition and welcome of “Brazilianness” in Chile provide these migrants with a distinct advantage over other migrants in the receiving society in the labor, social, and interpersonal spheres. This condition, paired with everyday transnational experiences, contributed to constructing an expanded narrative of self for the participants. We interpret that this subjective expansion has configured as an interstitial space that favors the emergence of culturally hybrid narrative identities that challenge the centrality of national identities in personal narratives.

Those who stay. Processes of individuation and settlement in contemporary migrant trajectories

Alma Adriana Lara Ramírez — 2025-04-30

This paper analyzes the individuation trajectories of Central American migrants residing in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey, Mexico. The study bridges the tradition of life trajectory analysis in migration studies with theoretical approaches from the sociology of individuation. It employs the principle of narrative anchoring to examine contemporary settlement experiences, reflecting on the specific processes involved in producing individuals within the context of irregular migration. Based on life stories collected between 2017 and 2022, the research identifies and articulates three key trials that shape the trajectories and the individuation of (in)migrant subjects in this socio-historical context: the migratory journey in an irregular situation, the labor trial and the process of obtaining papers in a context of institutional withdrawal, are sustained from exceptional and precarious supports, producing highly agentic individuals.

Factors influencing U.S. and Canadian policy responses to Ukrainian refugees

Eduardo Torre Cantalapiedra — 2025-04-11

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several Western countries have opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees, even though their international protection systems tended to be restrictive and selective. Based on a hemerographic analysis and a review of the academic literature, this paper analyzes the factors that influenced the United States and Canada's migration policy responses to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Additionally, Ukrainian migration and the emergence of the diaspora in Europe and North America are presented and examined for contextualization. It argues that the openness to welcoming Ukrainian nationals can be understood as an expression of smart power in the global conflict between the West and Russia.

Everyday practices of citizenship at an Amazonian tri-border region (Brazil, Colombia, Peru)

José Lindomar Albuquerque — 2025-03-14

The article aims to understand border citizenship not as a normative model, but as an everyday experience that people talk about through their lives, struggles and survival strategies. The empirical data reported here were produced from qualitative research developed between 2014 and 2018 by the authors with the support of local researchers who, among other things, have helped to conduct field observations, interviews and focus groups on border territories of Colombia, Peru and Brazil. The fundamental outcome was to think about border citizenship at the intersection with territory, state and market, emphasizing the tactics of citizenship produced from cross-border mobilities and the quest for rights in neighboring countries, even when the authorities consider certain practices illegal. From this perspective, citizenship tactics are important social resources rooted in the everyday life of border territories.

Central American cookers in Mexico: experiences of living through food

Hugo Saul Rojas Pérez — 2025-02-28

This study examines what it has meant to prepare and sell food for Salvadoran and Honduran women in Ciudad Hidalgo, Chiapas, Mexico, who remain in Mexican border territory. The links between food and the experience of living are analyzed, focusing on how this commercial activity has allowed them to mitigate their memories of forced migration and experiences of territorial immobility by generating intercultural processes through the reciprocal relationships and the transformation of stigmas about their nationality and gender. Food has been a fundamental element for their autonomy, not only in economic terms but also in the possibility of thinking of a new life project. Through interviews conducted in 2020 with six Central American cooks and the participation in cooking with them, these women’s living processes and the factors that allow us to deduce that food has been a vehicle that has facilitated that process are described.

Proximal transnationalism and identities within the border between Brazil and Paraguay

Marcos Estrada — 2025-02-14

The central objective of this article is to analyze transnational practices within border regions. The theoretical analysis focuses on the participation of rural workers, including members of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), in transnational activities on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Based on the cross-border experience of rural workers’ relations, part of a longitudinal study starting in 2012, with annual/bi-annual visits culminating in the final fieldwork in 2024, this article argues that geographical proximity and the search for a piece of land for subsistence have an essential role in cross-border transnationalism between Brazil and Paraguay. Based on own studies, defining transnationalism within border regions as proximal transnationalism is proposed. This case study also demonstrates how the participation of this group in transnationalism, encompassing agrarian issues in both countries, contributes to the formation of Brasiguaio identity (Brazilian + Paraguayan).

Autochthony boundaries. Internal and international migrants in Barcelona (Spain)

Diana Mata-Codesal — 2025-01-30

This article explores the heuristic possibilities of jointly addressing internal and international migrations, an aspect often neglected by migration studies which have tended to analyze them separately. Focused on the case of Barcelona between 1960 and 2020, the study combines the analysis of secondary sources and ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the authors in two neighborhoods of the city. It shows how both types of mobility have been “migrantized”, that is, subjected to a distinctive social condition that refers to the processes of subalternization to which these groups have been subjected in their societies of residence. While the scope of generalization of the results to other cases requires further research, solid evidence is provided of the contingent nature of the immigrant category and the analytical possibilities of exploring the processes of boundary-making —construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of boundaries— related to human mobility.

Trade, politics and everyday life in a Latin American cross-border region: the case of Corumbá/Puerto Suárez/Puerto Quijarro (Brazil/Bolivia)

Haroldo Dilla Alfonso — 2025-01-15

Latin American cross-border regions are multidimensional and multiscalar. They are influenced by structuring factors —economy, politics, daily life, identities and environment— that collide in themselves and with each other, and generate overdeterminations. The article highlights the strong incidence of everyday factors, to the same extent that there are no post-nationalist projects, nor accumulation strategies that use borders as resources. This article analyzes from this perspective a cross-border region that serves as a hinge between the two main economic zones of Brazil and Bolivia and is articulated around the cities of Corumbá (Brazil), and Puerto Quijarro and Puerto Suárez (Bolivia). The article concludes by proposing a series of heuristic questions related to the characteristics of the actors and the prospects of new governance modalities. The article is based on a fieldwork and the review of existing documents and literature on the subject carried out from 2023 to 2024.