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The Oldest Boundary in Europe? A Critical Approach to the Spanish-Portuguese Border: The Raia Between Galicia and Portugal

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14650045.2013.803191

1557-3028

Juan Manuel Trillo Santamaría, Valeríà Paül i Carril,

Galician and Iberian cultural studies

Abstract The boundary between Spain and Portugal is supposed to be one of the most – if not the most – fixed and stable borders in the world, with some authors stating that it has a history of almost a thousand years. However, this paper demonstrates that this is not the case by arguing that it has a mobile nature. After formulating a theoretical framework on borders and border studies, this contribution focuses on the raia between Galicia and Portugal as a specific section of the international Spanish-Portuguese border; several questions elucidating the mobile nature of the raia are answered, embracing historic, geographic, social, cultural, linguistic and economic issues. The paper finishes by considering the effects of the new period of European integration and by providing some concluding remarks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are very grateful to Claire Colomb and James Guy for their helpful reading of previous drafts. Three anonymous referees also contributed with very useful suggestions and criticisms. Notes 1. Roughly speaking, the total Spanish-Portuguese border measures around 1,300 km. Depending on the section and on the side, it is called raia, raya, frontera, fronteira, etc. See Figure 1. 2. H. van Houtum and T. van Naerssen, 'Bordering, Ordering and Othering', Tijdschrift voor economische en Sociale Geographie 93/3 (2002) pp. 125–136. 3. H. Nicol and I. Townsend-Gault, Holding the Line: Borders in a Global World (Vancouver: UBC Press 2005); H. Velasco-Graciet and C. Bouquet (dirs.), Tropisme et Frontière (Paris: L'Harmattan 2006). 4. D. Newman and A. Paasi, 'Fences and Neighbours in the Postmodern World: Boundary Narratives in Political Geography', Progress in Human Geography 22/2 (1998) pp. 186–207; D. Newman, 'The Line that Continue to Separate Us: Borders in Our 'Borderless' World'', Progress in Human Geography 30/3 (2006) pp. 143–161; J. Häkli, 'Re-Bordering Spaces', in K. Cox, M. Low, and J. Robinson (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography (London: Sage 2008) pp. 471–482; R. Jones, 'Categories, Borders and Boundaries', Progress in Human Geography 33/2 (2009) pp. 174–189; C. Johnson, R. Jones, A. Paasi, L. Amoore, A. Mountz, M. Salter, and C. Rumford, 'Interventions on Rethinking 'the Border' in Border Studies', Political Geography 30/2 (2011) pp. 61–69. Recently, two companions of border studies have been published, which shows the interest of this (multi)field of research: D. Wastl-Walter (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate 2011); T. Wilson and H. Donnan, A Companion to Border Studies (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell 2012). 5. H. van Houtum, 'The Geopolitics of Borders and Boundaries', Geopolitics 10/4 (2005) pp. 672–679. 6. Ibid., p. 672. 7. Jones (note 4). 8. Johnson et al. (note 4); Wilson and Donnan (note 4); Wastl-Walter (note 4). It can be noted that the Latin word frontier is not used in these debates, which can lead to a certain distance when dealing with other academic traditions, such as Spanish or French—see, for example, D. Nordman, 'La Frontera: Nociones y Problemas en Francia, Siglos XVI-XVII', Historia Crítica 32 (2006) pp. 154–171; or M. Foucher, Front et Frontières (Paris: Fayar 1991). This assumption cannot be developed here, but it may be a good subject for future research. 9. Foucher (note 8) p. 40. 10. E. Soja, Thirdspace, Journeys to Los Angeles and other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 1996). 11. H. Donnan and T. M. Wilson, Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State (Oxford: Berg 1999); A. Paasi, 'Bounded Spaces in a 'Borderless World': Border Studies, Power and the Anatomy of Territory', Journal of Power 2/2 (2009) pp. 213–234. 12. M. Anderson (coord.), Frontiers, Territory and State Formation in the Modern World (Malden: Blackwell 1996) p. 9. 13. H. van Houtum and E. Berg (eds.), Routing Borders between Territories, Discourses and Practices (Aldershot: Ashgate 2003); V. Kolossov, 'Theorizing Borders, Border Studies: Changing Perspectives and Theoretical approaches', Geopolitics 10/4 (2005) pp. 606–632. 14. H. van Houtum, O. Kramsch, and W. Zierhofer (eds.), B/Ordering Space (Aldershot: Ashgate 2005); Houtum and Berg (note 13). 15. Foucher (note 8) p. 43. 16. Donnan and Wilson, Borders: Frontiers of Identity (note 11). 17. Henk van Houtum, 'An Overview of European Geographical Research on Borders and Border Regions', Journal of Borderland Studies XV/1 (2000) p. 67. 18. Ibid. 19. D. Newman, 'Borders and Bordering: Towards an Interdisciplinary Dialogue', European Journal of Social Theory 9/2 (2006) pp. 171–186; H. Donnan and T. M. Wilson, 'Borders and Border Studies', in D. Donnan and T. M. Wilson (eds.), A Companion to Border Studies (note 4) pp. 1–25; D. Newman, 'Contemporary Research Agenda in Border Studies: An Overview', in D. Wastl-Walter (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate 2011) pp. 33–47. 20. P. Guichonnet and C. Raffestin, Géographie des frontières (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 1974). A distinction originally made by R. Dion, La frontière Québec-Terreneuve (Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval 1963). 21. J. P. Lacasse, 'Les nouvelles perspectives de l'étude des frontières politiques: revue de quelques contributions récentes', Cahiers de Géographie du Québec 18/43 (1974) pp. 187–200. 22. A. Paasi, 'Borders, Theory and the Challenge of Relational Thinking', in Johnson et al., 'Interventions on Rethinking 'the Border' in Border Studies', Political Geography 30/2 (2011) pp. 62–63. For more reflection on border theory, see A. Paasi, 'A Border Theory: An Unattainable Dream or a Realistic Aim for Border Scholars?', in Wastl-Walter (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate 2011) pp. 11–31. 23. N. Parker and N. Vaughan-Williams et al., 'Lines in the Sand ? Towards an Agenda for Critical Border Studies', Geopolitics 14/3 (2009) p. 586 (emphasis in the original). This Agenda has been recently "broadened and deepened" in a special section of Geopolitics (17/4, 2012); see the synthesis in N. Parker and N. Vaughan-Williams, 'Introduction: Critical Border Studies: Broadening and Deepening the 'Lines in the Sand' Agenda', Geopolitics 17/4 (2012) pp. 727–733. 24. A. Pred, 'Place as Historically Contingent Process: Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74/2 (1984) pp. 279–297; Paasi, 'Bounded Spaces' (note 11). 25. C. Rumford, 'Introduction: Citizens and Borderwork in Europe', Space and Polity 12/1 (2008) pp. 1–12; C. Rumford, 'Global Borders: An introduction to the Special Issue', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28 (2010) pp. 951–956. 26. E. Brunet-Jailly, 'Special Section: Borders, Borderlands and Theory: An Introduction', Geopolitics 16/1 (2011) p. 3. 27. Some examples are L. Amoore, 'Biometric Borders: Governing Mobilities in the War on Terror', Political Geography 25/3 (2006) pp. 336–351; A. Mountz, Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2010); N. Vaughan-Williams, 'The UK Border Security Continuum: Virtual Biopolitics and the Simulation of the Sovereign Ban', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28/6 (2010) pp. 1071–1083. 28. See, for example, the recent special issue of the Journal Mobilities 8/1 (2013) on Borders and Mobilities. See also T. Cresswell, 'Mobilities II: Still', Progress in Human Geography 36/5 (2010) pp. 645–653. 29. As the BRIT XI call for papers, focused on mobile borders, stated (see the website of the conference at , accessed Sep. 2011 ). 30. R. Strassoldo, From Barrier to Junction, toward a Sociological Theory of Borders (Goritzia: ISIG 1970); M. Baud and W. Van Schendel, 'Toward a Comparative History of Borderlands', Journal of World History 8/2 (1997) pp. 211–242; P. Sahlins, Boundaries. The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press 1999); Donnan and Wilson, 'Borders and Border Studies' (note 19); Donnan and Wilson, Borders: Frontiers of Identity (note 11). 31. E.g., E. Medina, 'Orígenes históricos y ambigüedad de la frontera hispano-lusa (La Raya)', Revista de Estudios Extremeños LXII/II (2006) pp. 713–724; P. Haggett, Geography. A Global Synthesis (Harlow: Pearson Education 2001). It is also important to note that the idea of being the oldest European boundary is a "key referent point in narratives of Portugal's history" (J. Sidaway, 'Signifying Boundaries: Detours around the Portuguese-Spanish [Algarve/Alentejo-Andalucía] Borderlands' Geopolitics 7/1 [2002] p. 145). 32. In fact, we should not refer to the Spanish state in the twelfth century, because in the Early and High Middle Ages it was the Kingdom of Galicia, usually designated as Kingdom of Asturias or León – see C. Nogueira, A memoria da nación. O reino da Gallaecia (Vigo: Xerais 2001); A. López Carreira, O reino medieval de Galicia (Vigo: A Nosa Terra 2005); M. A. Murado, Otra idea de Galicia (Barcelona: Debate 2008); or A. López-Carreira, Historia de Galicia (Vigo: Xerais 2013), and in the Late Middle Ages, what is known as the Crown of Castille. 33. C. Barros, 'La frontera medieval entre Galicia y Portugal', Medievalismo 4 (1994) pp. 27–39. 34. J. Sidaway, 'Rebuilding Bridges: A Critical Geopolitics of Iberian Transfrontier Cooperation in a European Context', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19/6 (2001) pp. 743–778; E. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990); Foucher (note 8). 35. L. M. García-Mañá, Couto Mixto. Unha república esquecida (Vigo: Universidade de Vigo 2000); F. Guichard, L. López, and L. Marrou (coords.), Itinerarios transfronterizos en la Península Ibérica (Zamora: Fundación Rei Afonso Henriques 2000). 36. L. M. García-Mañá, La Frontera hispano-lusa en la provincia de Ourense (Ourense: Museo Arqueolóxico Provincial 1988). 37. See note 32. 38. L. C. Amaral and J. C. Garcia, 'O Tratado de Alcañices (1297): uma construção historiográfica', Revista da Faculdade de Letras-História II/15 (1995) pp. 967–986. 39. L. M. García-Mañá, Miño: ¿Existiu unha fronteira? (Vigo: Galaxia 1993); García-Mañá, Couto Mixto (note 35); García-Mañá, La frontera hispano-lusa (note 36). 40. C. Caetano, L. Alegrias, and M. Cardoso, 'Um pé aqui … outro acolá. Relações de fronteira numa aldeia transmontana (Soutelinho da Raia)', Lethes. Cadernos Culturais do Limia 6 (2005) pp. 81–93. This historical situation is very similar to the case still in force of the Dutch-Belgian border in Baarle (A. Gelbman and D. J. Timothy, 'Border Complexity, Tourism and International Exclaves. A Case Study', Annals of Tourism Research 38/1 (2011) pp. 110–131). 41. R. Lois, Fronteras y análisis geográfico: la raya gallego-portuguesa (Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 2007); García-Mañá, La frontera hispano-lusa (note 36). 42. J. Fall, 'Artificial States? On the Enduring Geographical Myth of Natural Borders', Political Geography 29 (2010) pp. 140–147; B. Debardieux and G. Rudaz, Les faiseurs de montagne. Imaginaires politiques et territorialités: XVIIIe-XIXe siècle (Paris: CNRS 2010). 43. García-Mañá, Couto Mixto (note 35) p. 36 (translation is ours). 44. P. Vidal de la Blache, Les divisions fondamentales du sol français (Paris: Colin 1889). See also Debardieux and Rudaz (note 42). 45. Á. X. López-Mira, A Galicia irredenta (Vigo: Xerais 1998); García-Mañá, Miño: ¿Existiu una fronteira? (note 39). 46. D. Rumley and J. V. 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Trillo-Santamaría, 'Between Regional Spaces and Spaces of Regionalism: Cross-Border Region Building in the Spanish 'State of the Autonomies'', Regional Studies 47/1 (2013) pp. 104–115. 83. J. L. Palmeiro, 'Transborder Cooperation and Identities in Galicia and Northern Portugal', Geopolitics 14/1 (2009) pp. 79–107; Trillo-Santamaría (note 74); Lois, Fronteras y análisis geográfico (note 41). 84. Ibid. 85. Sidaway, 'Signifying Boundaries' (note 31). 86. M. Anderson (coord.), Frontiers, Territory and State Formation in the Modern World (Malden: Blackwell 1996). 87. Sidaway, 'Signifying Boundaries' (note 31) p. 157. 88. Amante (note 51); Caetano, Alegrias, and Cardoso (note 40).