Reshaping the World: Rethinking Borders

Dear Colleagues,

The relevance of physical borders and social boundaries seems to be on the rise; as an example, the growing talk about the construction of a wall between the US and Mexico. European skepticism about its ability to integrate refugees is gaining popularity, with demands on stricter border control and attacks to the free-movement policy within the European Union. These were also some of the main points of leave supporters during the Brexit campaign. Through history, the location and meaning of borders have constantly shifted, the national and international constellations of political powers get naturalized in borderlands, identities are challenged and rebuilt, and multiple distinctions between "true" citizens fade and re-emerge. The goal of this Special Issue is to create a multidisciplinary space to critically analyze and discuss the political and sociological implications of the increased solidification of national borders that we are currently facing, worldwide.

We invite the submission of papers that look at:

• The rise of the modern nation-state and the birth of national borders.
• The historical connection between nation-building, contention, and border policing.
• The spread of discourse and policies around “border security.”
• The military and civilian policing and surveillance of political borders.
• The effect of border discourse on everyday interactions away from border areas.
• Border enforcement reporting and changes in social boundary-making.
• The link between racism and white nationalism and the increasing talk about immigrant threats.
• Realities and exaggerations around migrant, refugee, and border crises.
• Data on actual flows of people between border-free zones, e.g., European Union and porous borders in the developing world.
• The successes of internal migration.
• Theoretical and methodological innovations to transcend methodological-nationalism and epistemology.
• Globalization/deglobalization, democratization/dedemocratization and xenophobia.
• Categorical inequality and immigrant exclusion.
• What could be feasible alternatives to the international system of nation-states?

We aim to produce a high-quality Special Issue with contributions from scholars with an active research agenda or record of publishing on these questions. Papers should be based in empirical realities and hope to address policy challenges. Papers should be written in a clear way with scholars and students in mind but also a wider audience. The paper will be blindly peer-reviewed, and there will be no publication costs associated with the process. Social Sciences is one of the rising open access journals in the field of social science that aims to deliver broader interdisciplinary discussions on important academic and social debates. Based in Switzerland, MDPI has experience publishing in the natural sciences in a vetted rigorous and expedient fashion since 1996.

Dr. Ernesto Castañeda
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.