Militarised Indigenous Borderscapes: Reconfiguring geographies of war and borders

This project aims to offer critical insight into the relationship between borders and war as discussed and theorised among geographers and border studies scholars. Contemporary war, especially as led by the United States and its allies, relies on overseas bases that were built on indigenous lands. Indigenous lands remain divided and such (post)colonial bordering continues to affect the lives of local residents. The project will study how militarisation borders indigenous spaces not only politically and territorially but also socially, economically, and culturally. It will also explore how residents contest and negotiate their bordered lives and investigate for the development of distinct border cultures and subjectivities in these spaces. The project will combine textual analysis with ethnographic methods and focus on the cases of Sápmi and Okinawa Island, which are today of great importance in light of the growing militarisation of northern Europe and heightened tensions in East Asia.