The papers for the SI will be based on contributions presented and discussed in a workshop to be held in Bayonne (France) between the 17th and 19th June 2025.
Later, the articles will be submitted in November-December 2025 to the Journal of Historical Geography for publication in 2026.
The editors of the special issue and the organizers of the workshop in Bayonne are:
Benjamin Duinat, historian, Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour (France): benjamin.duinat @ univ-pau.fr
Maxime Kaci, historian, Université de Franche-Comté – IUF (France): maxime.kaci @ univ-fcomte.fr
Paloma Puente Lozano, geographer, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain): ppuente @ hum.uc3m.es
Intent
This special issue will focus on anomalous situations within European border spaces from the late Middle Ages to the present day (15th-21st centuries). It seeks to develop an innovative interdisciplinary approach to territorial anomalies, by bringing together geographers, historians and political scientists with interest in the evolution of border spaces and territorial dynamics.
This special issue aims at examining the ‘production’ of anomalies located at international borders (corresponding thus to spaces that define the limits of sovereignty, the exercise of power and the performance of state territory). The hypothesis that we want to explore in this special issue is that the establishment and consolidation of border regimes across Europe from the Middle Ages onwards is closely related to the codification, management and re-signification, both discursively and materially, of what came to be considered ‘anomalous situations’ within modern territorial states (such as enclaves, areas of shared sovereignty, undefined zones or mixed lands, space of multiple legal affiliations, temporary disruptions of territorial continuity in times of crisis or war, etc.). Therefore, putting the spotlight into border anomalies helps to historically, politically and geographically scrutinize the material and normative production of today’s well-stablished spatial patterns and territorial norms regarding boundary-making and state-building. More importantly, it allows for grasping the extent to which the diffusion, assumption and/or imposition of territorial sovereignty and statehood as global norms was dependent on recasting previous existing situations into exceptions to the rule (either by eliminating or by ‘conserving’ them as such, i.e. ‘anomalies’ within the framework of emerging liberal states).
Yet in broader terms, how can anomalies be properly defined? Are we talking just about an oddity, an irregularity, a deviation from the normal type, an exception to the rule? More crucially, who gets to define what the anomaly is and ought to be? And ultimately, qui prodest? How did local populations central agencies alike manage to operationalize anomalous situations as to preserve their interests or further define and the spatial contours of the exercise of power?
Of course, what counts as normal/anomalous varies immensely through history and across space, so does the political and normative meaning that anomalies get to assume as part of the larger process of territorial production they are part of. However, what is essentially at stake when exploring anomalies is what they reveal about the constitution of the norm, both as an ideal and a reality. Furthermore, attention should be drawn to the fact that the term ‘anomaly’ nominalizes (and thus tends to reify) that which is designated by the adjective abnormal/anomalous. Etymologically speaking, the word ‘anomaly’ comes neither from nomos, nor from norma, but from omalos (ώμαλος), that which offers an even, smooth, unified surface. An-omalos (ἀνώμαλος) thus refers to a rough, uneven, unequal terrain, yet an eventful one. Such semantic ambiguity offers potential for exploring a vast array of particularities and heterogeneous situations that too often tend to be concealed behind the homogenous narratives and frameworks that explain the emergence and consolidation of interstate borders and modern statehood.
Previously, scholarship has coped with a vast array of sui generis situations as they unfolded in, interacted with or were impervious to fixed and structuring principles of statehood and international law (Rugy, 2021). These have been explored in terms of ‘zones of anomaly’ (Raianu, 2018), ‘territorial ambivalences’ and ‘territorial disorders’ (Chanson-Jabeur and Maalouf Monneau, 2013), ‘limit cases’ (Hamidi, 2012), ‘anomalous legal zones’ (Neuman, 1996; Zagor, 2024), or further ‘anomalous geopolitical spaces’ (McConnel, 2010), and as anomalies on the maps (Connell and Aldrich, 2020) or in the borders (Duinat, 2019). At stake in such formulas is an attempt to understand, both historically and in the current context, the oddity of certain contested, unrecognized, fragmented or special zones in what is increasingly perceived as an evolving world of political anomalies, complexities and exceptions, of unusual and disputed territories. What seems to emerge from this literature is an increasingly nuanced and complex understanding of the legal, political and spatial pluralism and heterogeneity that the dominant model of the territorial state within the modern international system allowed, which only reinforced the very political fiction of the existence of such state norms and territorial models on a global scale (Maier, 2016; Stilz, 2019).
Expanding on this scholarship we seek to articulate an inductive approach that can provide a general overview of the role of territorial anomalies, notably border anomalies, in the consolidation and contestation of modern statehood. This would help to further link geo-historical methodologies to ongoing borders studies (O’Dowd, 2010). On the one hand, relying upon ‘case-based thinking’ (Passeron and Revel, 2005) can allow to better grasp the complexity of modern entanglements of the three key non-synchronic process (boundary-making, state-building and the territorialization of sovereignty) that resulted on the formation and consolidation of the international system as we have known it until very recently. On the other hand, decentered approaches put forth by border studies (that is, a new spotlight put on other actors, other sites and other dynamics than those defined by centers of power) help to interpret geopolitical transformation and developments in a new light (Brambilla 2015, Morieux 2016)
By putting to work these sets of methodologies, our ambition is to develop a reflection in line with current historiographical and political developments, which call for a renewed examination of borders of yesterday and today alike. The most recent contributions in post/decolonial studies have brought into question normative assumptions about territorial sovereignty, statehood and the rules that define the international system. Again, ongoing geopolitical tensions and conflicts make clear that anomalies are key places where prevailing norms and rules are contested, fought over, rejected or imposed, revealing that the wrongly assumed ‘fixed’, ‘natural’ or ‘immutable’ character of states and their borders in but a fabricated political fiction.
Process
The overall idea and approach is not to propose a collection of specific cases, but to pull together a sound reflection encouraged by a three-day workshop, organized in 2025 at the Bayonne (France) and sponsored by Université des Pau et Pays de l’Adour. This meeting will provide an opportunity to compare, cross-reference specific cases, but more significantly, to collectively reflect on connections, similarities and larger patterns regarding the role of territorial anomalies. To carry out this project, an international group of researchers will meet for three days in Bayonne from 17 to 19 June 2025. This multilingual meeting (English, French and Spanish will be used for the discussions) will take the form of a writing workshop which will provide a forum for discussion, debate and, by extension, improvement of the drafts presented so that the IS can take its definitive and enhanced form. Therefore, a first draft will be sent in advance (by 31 May 2025) to feed the collective exchanges and for everyone to be able to read other’s drafts and discussed on them to draw parallelisms and connections, or further point out differences and divergences.
Assessment criteria
Three main evaluation criteria have been adopted. Firstly, proposals must be based on a case study that is original and singular enough to appeal to non-specialist readers. This case study must then feed into a more general discussion on the formation and consolidation of modern statehood and border regimes in Europe. Particular attention will be paid to the overall balance of the case studies both in terms of geography (all regions of Europe) and history (the chronological arc from 15th to 21st centuries).
Deadlines
- Expressions of interests are to be sent before 6 January 2025, including a title and abstract of the proposals, written in English, and approximately of a length of 500 words. The abstract should include a contextualized presentation of the anomalous border or territorial situation, the primary sources that will be used, a brief elaboration on the broader issue at stake when approaching such particular case-study and how this contributes to the existing scholarship on territorial anomalies, statehood and boundary-making. Besides, attendance to the workshop in Bayonne (France) in June 2025 should be confirmed when the proposal is submitted to the organizers, to the following e-mails: duinat@univ-pau.fr; maxime.kaci @ univ-fcomte.fr; ppuente @ hum.uc3m.es. By early February 2025 editors of the SI will contact selected contributors to discuss their proposals and get ahead with the process for them to be ready for the workshop.
- Selected contributors should send the first full draft of the paper, as it will be presented and discussed in the workshop, before the 31st May 2025. The length of the drafts will around 8000-10000 words.
- The workshop in Bayonne (France) will take place between the 17th and 19th June 2025. Presenters are strongly encouraged to incorporate the feedback and general insights put froth through the in-person discussions as to submit the final version of the paper in November-December 2025, with a length of 10000 words. Editors will review the papers again before submitting them to Journal of Historical Geography for peer-review.
References
Brambilla, C. (2015). Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept, Geopolitics, 20: 14-34.
Chanson-Jabeur, C., Maalouf Monneau, M. (2013). (Eds.). Conflits et territoires au Moyen-Orient et au Maghreb, Cahiers du Gremamo, 21, 208 p, Paris: L’Harmattan.
Connell, J. Aldric, R. (2020) (eds.). Anomalies on the Map. In The end of Empires. The Last Colonies Revisited. London: Palgrave/MacMilan.
Duinat, B. (2019). Une anomalie frontalière à la loupe : Ondarrola, un hameau entre la France et l’Espagne (v. 1780 – v. 1860). Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, 58, 249-268.
Hamidi, C: (2012), De quoi un cas est-il le cas ? Penser les cas limites. Politix, 100: 85-98.
Maier, C. S. (2016) Once within borders. Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
McConnel, F: (2010). The Fallacy and the Promise of the Territorial Trap: Sovereign Articulations of Geopolitical Anomalies. Geopolitics, 15 (4): 762-768.
Morieux, R. (2016). The Channel: England, France and the Construction of a Maritime Border in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge Social and Cultural Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Neuman, G. L. (1996). Anomalous Zones. Stanford Law Review, 48(5): 1197-1234.
O’Dowd,L. (2010). From a “Borderless World” to a “World of Borders”: “Bringing History Back. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. XXVIII: 1031-1050.
Passeron, J.C., Revel, J. (2005). Penser par cas. Raisonner à partir de singularités, in: Jean-Claude Passeron and Jacques Revel (Eds..), Penser par cas, Paris: Editions de l’ EHESS, pp. 9- 44.
Raianu, M. (2018). A mass of anomalies: Land, Law, and Sovereignty in an Indian Company Town. Comparative Studies in Society and History 60(2):367–389.
Rugy, M. (2021). Logics of Rule and Territorial Anomalies. Imperial Borderlands. Maps and Territory-Building in the Northern Indochinese Peninsula (1885-1914). Imperial Borderlands Maps and Territory-Building in the Northern Indochinese Peninsula (1885-1914). Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 255–278.
Stilz, A. (2019). Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zagor, M. (2024). “Safe Legal Pathways” or New Colonial Frontiers? A Critical Analysis of European Intervention in the Sahel and the Creation of Anomalous Legal Zones. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 43(1): 22–52.
