Cognitive geographies of bordering: The case of urban neighbourhoods in transition

Abstract

Linking borders to cognition can widen our understandings of space–society relations. In this contribution, border-making will be related to the creation of urban place distinctions and place narratives that create a sense of specific “thereness.” The focus is not on cognitive mappings of urban borders as such. Rather, border-making will be revealed as an intersubjective creation of meaning in the guise of socially communicated narratives of place distinction—stories and knowledges of place that reflect embodied experience of place specificity and relationality with regard to wider urban contexts. I argue that the utility of interpreting urban spaces and places in this fashion lies in understanding why borders within society are created and how they become evident in the process of meaning-making. This perspective also helps us understand the significance of place and why cities and their neighbourhoods are continuously appropriated and reappropriated in social, cultural, and political terms. As borders tell stories, border-making itself involves narratives of change and continuity that can reveal much about how places function—or fail to function—as communities. Developing an approach elaborated by Scott and Sohn, examples of urban border-making will be gleaned from Berlin and Warsaw.