Living the vast majority of my life in an area that celebrates diversity but thrives because of illegal cross-border activities (undocumented workers, drug imports) at times the distance between the United States and Mexico is in fact as thin as the width of a fence. Though it is typical for a filmmaker to hope to present a unique take on a subject, given how I have seen the topics of immigration and the perspective of the purpose of homeland security portray, I am confident that there is an opportunity to show these issues in a more personal, less aggressive light with the use of first person accounts instead of a dependence on the most violent aspects of these topics. The main subject will give character to this agency by blurring the lines of his life as an agent and as a citizen.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the effectiveness of cross-border cooperation as a tool for local/regional development of underdeveloped border regions, and whether it is appropriate for Turkey&rsquo / s border regions. The basic statement is that the trajectories of intense economic relations do not always let cross-border co-operation / it can develop through supportive policies fed by the active participation of cross-border actors. The scope of this study is, - to examine changing theoretical ideas about borders and border relations, - to review some of the important changes affecting the cross-border cooperations / and the implications of transformations in the global mechanisms through new network relations determined within the multi-level governance approach, - to develop a framework for analysing the success of cross-border cooperation, - to discuss the cross-border co-operation trajectories through the world experiences and Turkish case, - to search for a new model This study will focus on a set of theoretical tools involving independent dimensions such as governance, economy and social structure. Along these theoretical perspectives, the importance of a cross-border co-operation for local/regional development will be emphasised through the case of Hopa-Batumi border region. Handling of this case will be an attempt to put forward the opportunities and barriers of a cross-border co-operation for Turkish border regions. This study is developed by the examination of theoretical literature, generating comparative analysis of world experiences with reference to available literature, and Turkish border regions executed with the newspapers archives and legal arrangements, and case study through in-depth interviews.

Cross-border tourism development have become increasingly popular the last decades and especially within the European Union through Interreg-programmes. The contemporary research have mainly focused on the advantages and challenges associated with such collaborations with a perspective on visitors and private entrepreneurs in border regions. There are however an unfortunate lack of research on the role of local governments such as municipalities in cross-border tourism collaborations. Therefore the aim of this study is to analyse the interest and attitudes among public actors towards cross-border tourism development, and to identify challenges facing these on an interregional level in cross-border tourism collaborations. The case study have been the Öresund Region between Sweden and Denmark where recently a large scale cross-border platform was implemented party focusing on tourism development in the region. A qualitative approach has been utilized with semi-structured interviews focusing on advantages and challenges associated with cross-border tourism development among public actors in the region. The analysis have shown that there is a great interest among the informants for large scale tourism cooperation in order to reach distant markets and to become a stronger competitor on the global market. Identified challenges mainly concern uneven political power structures which may lead to barriers for further cooperation’s.

The following report describes the pre-production, production, and post-production of the short film, The Borderlanders, set and shot in South Texas. Its story centers on an immigrant youth who tries to escape the tensions that arise in one family coming together after many years of forced separation because of current immigration policies. It is a meditation on family dynamics and the intimate politics of the border. The report discusses the thought process behind creating images of Latinos in film, the writing of the film, and analyzes the creative choices that gave shape to the film. The original screenplay is included as well as the credits. / text

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The dissertation examines one of the most remarkable and controversial developments in the recent history of European integration, namely the institutionalization of a regional policy regime to manage the continent’s frontiers. By adopting this regime (known in policy circles as ‘Schengen’), European governments have in fact relinquished part of their sovereign authority over the politically sensitive issue of border control, thereby challenging what for a long time was the dominant national approach to policy-making in this domain. In order to account for the regime’s emergence and success, a constructivist analytical framework centred on the notion of ‘cultures of border control’ is advanced. From this perspective, the adoption of a regional approach to govern Europe’s frontiers is the result of the evolution of a nationalist (‘Westphalian’) culture—or set of background assumptions and related practices about borders shared by a given policy community—into a post-nationalist one (‘Schengen’). The cultural evolutionary argument elaborated in the dissertation captures the unique political dynamics that have characterized border control in Europe in the last two decades and offers a more nuanced account of recent developments than those available in the existing European Studies literature. It can also shed light on current trends defining European politics beyond border control (e.g., Europe’s policy towards its neighbours) and on other attempts to regionalize border control outside Europe (e.g., the proposal for a North American security perimeter).

The main theatre of the war in Afghanistan is in its borderlands to Pakistan. There the Taliban strongholds never ceased and its local population seem to affiliate with the enemy. December 1 2009 President Barack Obama presented a new “comprehensive” strategy concerning the mission in Afghanistan. This was a strategy highly dominated by counterinsurgency – or in other words to change the main focus from the enemy to the population. The study’s aim was to analyse the assessment of the borderlands in the new Afghanistan counterinsurgency mission. This was done with the tools of critical discourse analysis and also in identifying ideal types in the counterinsurgency theory. The goal was to understand how the borderlands were assessed in the mission and if the concepts of regional aspects, external support, winning hearts and minds and securing the population were addressed.  The results show that the borderlands were assessed well in accordance to counterinsurgency theory, but the specific cultural aspects of Afghanistan were given little attention. The situation in the borderlands is still to this day very unstable.

Despite seemingly discriminatory practices at the border directed towards US citizens, no formal academic work has been conducted on the subject. This study is the first of its kind, which examines the phenomenon of the denying and banning of US citizens from the external Israeli border crossings. It draws upon the cases of 110 US citizens who have been banned or denied from the external Israeli border crossings from 1987-2015. This study finds that denial is often associated with Palestinian Americans, Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, Black Americans and Americans who personally identify as activists or are considered by border officials to be so. It argues that Israel’s actions at their border crossings have become increasingly standardized over time through practices of “stealth authoritarianism” that create the veneer of due process in the execution of a denial or ban and lead to difficulties pursuing redress. Finally, this study puts forth how this practice fits within the broader context of Israeli policies regarding the subjugation of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel proper as well as individuals suspected of being activists working towards Palestinian liberation. Ultimately, this study hopes to lay a multi-disciplinary groundwork for understanding the implications of the denial and banning of US citizens at the external Israeli border crossings for those who wish to pursue the topic in the future.

As editor of the ballad collection Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-3), Walter Scott sought to salvage and preserve the cultural memory of the Border region, rescuing “popular superstitions, and legendary history, which, if not now collected, must soon have been totally forgotten” (MSB 1802; 1: cix). Scott’s endeavour was inspired by the movement towards cultural nationalism, which in Scotland, as in a wider European context, saw interest in traditional material reinvigorated by a widespread zeal to recover, polish and publish ‘relics’ of localised, oral culture perceived to be threatened by the rapid march of modernity. This thesis is a study on the theme of memory in the Minstrelsy. Under examination are the personal and cultural memories from which Scott synthesised his seminal ballad collection, as well as the internal memorial dynamics of the Minstrelsy itself. The social, material and mental dimensions of Posner’s semiotic model of culture (Posner 1991), may also be seen to constitute the three main components of the term ‘cultural memory’, a metaphor for the memorial symbols and practices through which social groups define and maintain their cultural identity. A recent definition of the term interprets cultural memory as “the sum of all processes […] which are involved in the interplay of past and present within sociocultural contexts” (Erll 2011: 101). The Minstrelsy is a composite text in which ballad versions gathered from a range of oral and written sources are framed by Scott’s editorial commentary. This convergence of media means that the collection itself may be understood as a memorial, or ‘site of memory’ which symbolises a particular version of the past (Nora 1989). Through the editorial commentary, Scott was able to negotiate the transmission of cultural knowledge concerning the past of the Borders as well as the wider Scottish nation. The aims of this research are twofold. The first is to achieve a deeper understanding of the cultural contexts surrounding the creation of the Minstrelsy. The second is to contribute to the swiftly developing area of cultural memory studies through a focus on the editorial interpretation of oral tradition in the case of this canonical ballad collection. To this end, memoirs, correspondence and ballad manuscripts are drawn upon to investigate the layered memory culture of traditional songs, narratives, images and places through which Scott sifted during the compilation of the collection. The thesis is structured to represent a gradual widening in scope from the personal to the collective, throughout which it is argued that Scott’s editing of the Minstrelsy may be aligned with a mediated memorial practice that actively shapes the identity of the culture which he as editor sought to preserve.

The following thesis outlines the benefits of manufacturing in the United States because of the new Republican tax reform. House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump have been proposing large corporate tax cuts, full expensing of capital expenditures, a border adjustment tax, and repatriation of foreign cash flows. These changes will encourage more corporations to manufacture in the USA because the USA will be more globally competitive, a key focus of the Republican administration.