Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
M.Sc. Department of Sociology, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran.
2
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Allameh Tabatabaei University, Tehran, Iran
https://doi.org/10.34785/J016.2021.373
Abstract
Abstract
Nationalist ideas and economic-spatial inequalities have always sought to reveal aspects of the frontier world; But they do not consider this kind of "openness" to be the borderline world of independent existence and express it in contrast to the centrist world, as a result of which these theories have not achieved the essence and meaning of being in the border world as they should. For example, the importance and meaning of borders and frontier dwellers in nationalist ideas (especially classical ideas) can be examined from two aspects. First, borders are seen as a tool and resource in nationalist thought. First, the border is a tool for determining the boundaries of a territory that is essential to the formation of national identity. In other words, in the classical theories of nationalism, one of the main components for recognizing a nation is having a common land. To be. The border is a tool through which the land of a nation is determined and that nation can claim to be a nation by invoking this land. Regarding the importance of the concept of borders and land for the formation of a nation, Ratzel believes that "the formation of any nation is the product of an emotional connection with the land." (Mir Haidar, 1381: 50) In today's world, the nation includes the idea of collective unity of people in a given land. The existence of this concept is realized when the people who make up this human group recognize common elements among themselves. The second aspect of the meaning of border and frontier residents is more related to the cultural identity of frontier people. Another concern of nationalism is to have a territorially united and culturally united land, so much so that if they do not have this unified culture, they build it, that is, the process of "nationalization." In territories that embrace different cultures, governments, influenced by nationalist ideas, sought to spread a single culture throughout their territory. In fact, as Gellner puts it, "the principle of nationalism requires that the boundaries of the political unit and the ethnic unit be reconciled." In other words, since ethnicity is essentially defined in terms of a common culture, all individuals, or almost all individuals, in a political entity must have the same culture, and all individuals with the same culture must be within the same political entity. In simple terms: a culture, a country. (Gellner, 2009: 58)
While these theories are important in revealing aspects of being in the world of borders, this study seeks to reveal what this world is from another aspect by considering an independent existence for the border. Considering an independent existence for the border means that a The historical background makes the openness of the border comprehensible to us, and in turn the border causes the openness of beings and the world around it, in the antique and ontological sense in a special way. In order to navigate the fundamental existence of beings, it is important to pay attention to two points in Heidegger's later works and thought. First, "Heidegger believes that the meaning of existence should not be considered absolute. "Rather, the universe must be considered historical." (Ahmadi, 1393: 37) If we want to know the essence of the existence of the border, we must obtain its historical character in order to discover the fundamental presuppositions that reveal it. This fact also indicates that the meaning of borders and frontier dwellers changes in different periods, even borders may find independent existence after formation and find different functions from their original existential goals. Second, "when things become somewhat independent as objects, they become manifest in their very essence, their very being" (Young, 1392: 91). Boundaries become "somewhat independent" after formation, and in a self-existence that is independent of us. They also manifest in such circumstances that they can influence the manifestation of other beings as well as Dasein.
The method of this research is a combination of Van Mannen's documentary-analytical method and hermeneutic phenomenology. In this study, purposive sampling was used to select the research samples, which after selecting 18 sampling items, reached theoretical saturation. The data collection techniques were document study, in-depth unstructured interviews, and participatory observation and field notes. In hermeneutic phenomenology, interviews are used for a very specific purpose. First, it has lived as a tool for searching for and collecting narratives of experiences. Second, it is the tool by which conversational relationships are formed with the respondent about the meanings of experience. This may be achieved by reflecting responsibly on the subject under study (Van Manen, 1984). Interviews also allow respondents to talk about their stories in their own words. Vanmanen believes that in a hermeneutic phenomenological research we can choose three approaches to reveal or separate the thematic dimensions of a phenomenon: 1- Holistic approach 2- Selective or highlighting approach 3- Partial or line-by-line approach, In the holistic approach, the text is considered as a whole, and the question arises as to what phrase can express the meaning of this text, and then we try to understand the meanings of the text using the formulation of such a phrase. Let's express. In the selective reading approach, the goal is to find themes that fulfill the description of the phenomenon. In the partial reading approach, we examine each single proposition or set of sentences and the question arises as to what each of these sentences or sets of sentences express about the phenomenon (van manen, 1990: 93). In this research, two holistic and selective approaches have been used to reveal the structure of the main meanings of the experience of the people of the border region.
The findings of this study indicate that the idea of "building" the nation provided the conditions for the openness of the borders, but the borders, after being formed, in their turn affected the way the beings of the world around them became open. Boundaries cause the world around them to become apparent, not in its essence and nature, but in a different way. "Instability", "insecurity", "panic" are the existential structures of the beings of the border world. Just as borders reveal the world around them in a special way, they also affect the "design" of frontier dwellers, revealing frontier dwellers as "anxious and uninhabitable" peoples.
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