流动性视角下边界的空间实践及其意义——以云南省河口县中越边境地区X村为例

边界是不同的社会与政治实体接触和交流的场所,跨边界的日常生活流动是历久和普遍的社会事实。边民与边境管理者丰富的跨界流动性实践,包括了自下而上到自上而下的双向互动,促进了边界意义的生产与再生产。透过流动性的研究视角,基于Newman对边境的地理学问题研究论调,从边境管理者和边民两个方面的日常空间实践进行了展现,选取云南省河口县中越边境地区的典型边寨为案例地,通过质性研究方法分析跨界流动的空间实践及其意义,进一步为解读边界的空间意义提供中国案例,以期更全面地看待边界问题。研究发现：边境草根群体自下而上的跨界流动,促进边界成为衡量经济、社会关系、文化意义以及政治权力形成和变迁过程的一个重要变量和维度。跨界流动实用主义色彩之上,也作用于边境社会关系网络的建构,对边民民族文化认同、国家认同等的建构产生积极作用。权力机关在边境生存法则基础上的流动性实践深化了国家意志,边界即成为权力“物化”的工具,流动性形成治理的手段和方法之一,边境地区同时被不断地规划和塑造。

Meanings and practices of borders from the perspective of cross-border mobility: A case study of village X,Hekou, Yunnan at the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands

Borders separate political entities, but cross-border mobilities at the level of everyday life are common, complex and historically long existent. This paper suggests that the inhabitants of the borderlands and the governance of border regions should be analyzed from the lens of mobilities, which contribute to the ongoing production of the meanings of the border. This process involves the interaction and articulation between top-down state governance and bottom-up actions of negotiation and adaption. Borders are endowed with rich cultural meanings, which are also essential to the exercise of state power and the formation of community identities. In the context of the ethnic frontiers of China, the study of borders is particularly relevant, because the border has profound implications for ethnic minorities' integration into a unified national identity, especially given that ethnic identities do not always conform to de jure geopolitical orders. Based on these theoretical insights, this study focuses on the various forms of cross-border mobilities practiced by border inhabitants. Adopting qualitative research methods, it chooses the case of Village X, located in Hekou County, Yunnan Province, which borders Lao Cai Province, Vietnam. The study finds that cross-border mobilities of grassroots groups turn the border into an important constitutive factor in the formation of the social, economic and political niches at the borderlands. While ethnic groups do not challenge their de jure belonging to the nation-state, they nonetheless maintain regular cross-border social ties and exchanges to preserve ethnic identities. Cross-border mobilities not only serve pragmatist ends, but more importantly, they also play a significant role in the construction of cultural and national identities border inhabitants, and help construct social networks that bind together a cross-border society. Meanwhile, the official techniques of border governance strengthen the will of the nation-state, and the border is therefore changed to a materialized instrument of power. But grassroots communities have also developed various coping strategies, many of which have prompted the state to adopt more flexible and context-specific approaches of regulation that do not follow dogmatic principles. Therefore, this paper argues that we need to pay attention to the effects of flexible border management in the actual social contexts of the borderlands, and try to take into account the diverse ways in which mundane practices of border inhabitants co-constitute state power and geopolitical orders.