Fictional Walls: Dystopian Scenarios of Bordered Lives

“Wall” is one of the multiple names that have been used to describe a border. “The fence, the wall, […] the frontier, the limit, the march, the boundary” are all “distinct phenomena in social history” that delineate a border in space, as Thomas Nail reminds us in the Theory of the Border. While these words allude mostly to a dividing line, a static linear structure between two separate territories, today’s border studies argue for something different. Antony Cooper and Søren Tinning, referencing the work of numerous contemporary researchers, talk about “the conceptual shift from borders as territorial lines to bordering as socio-cultural processes, practices, and discourses.” Border studies look at bordering not only in terms of territory but also “in the messy here-and-now micro-politics of everyday life practices and experiences.”3 Based on this definition, this essay examines walls that create territorial separations while also playing a prominent role in everyday life practices and experiences. [...]