A recent New Yorker piece by Paul Kramer, associate professor of History at Vanderbilt University, prompted this post. Of the many subtopics that make Borderlands History so fascinating is the constant inherent tension between the supposed impermeability and permanence of borders or international boundaries, and the constant forces that violate them. By definition, the boundary is meant to demarcate, impose order, and force a landscape to stay static. As history has proven, landscapes, nature, and people rarely cooperate with such impositions. My own work on Native landscapes bisected by Euro-American borders reflects this tension. I also love how non-human natural forces make borders problematic. Birds migrate across them freely, salmon swim by them with Continue readingWhen Nature Moves Borders