Revealing the Spatiality of Crises: Lessons from Failures of Boundary Work in a Cross-Border Crisis

Abstract

Our societies are facing the rise of cross-border crises, which transcend established territorial demarcations. Managing cross-border crises raises challenges of spatiality, as actors need to coordinate within an unexpected, temporary space of action, shaped by multiple overlapping boundaries. However, little is known about how actors deal with the spatial ambiguity of cross-border crises. To answer this question, this article builds on a qualitative case study of the 1999 Mont-Blanc Tunnel fire. It adopts a boundary work perspective, focusing on the intentional shaping of boundaries, as an antecedent to coordination. We introduce a conceptual distinction between the notions of ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ to better account for the multiscalar nature of cross-border boundary work. By unfolding the spatiality of the crisis process, our analysis highlights the failures of boundary work in the Mont-Blanc Tunnel fire case. We find that boundary work cannot happen until borders and boundaries are explicitly revealed and acknowledged. Our study contributes to cross-border crises literature in both management and public administration fields by revealing the interdependencies of borders and boundaries as an implicit driver of the crisis process. We also extend the boundary work perspective by introducing ‘boundary revelation’ as a condition to unfold boundary work in a crisis situation.