Bordering after nature,like an animal and beyond

Abstract

This paper investigates what it means to study geopolitical borders and bordering “after Nature,” in a context where the Nature–Culture binary is increasingly being challenged. It examines the implications of reconceptualizing borders as naturalcultural entities and the theoretical, analytical, and methodological consequences of such a shift. Our work offers a twofold contribution. First, we engage with existing literature on borders and the more-than-human, arguing that transcending the Nature–Culture divide expands the multiperspectival approach to border studies by acknowledging nonhuman agencies in (de)bordering processes. This broader perspective aligns with longstanding efforts in border studies to recognize the diversity of actors involved in shaping and dismantling borders. While taking nonhuman agency seriously is essential, we contend that this is only a starting point. To fully integrate the implications of moving beyond the Nature–Culture divide, multiperspectivism must be revised to embrace a pluriversal ontology—one that accounts for the multiplicity of human and nonhuman perspectives. Such an approach enables a rethinking of geopolitical borders with nonhuman others and transforms key border studies concepts such as B/ordering and Othering. Second, we apply this broadened and revised multiperspectivism to a concrete case: the whale. By analyzing whale–human entanglements in two “contact zones”—the Mediterranean and the postcolonial North—we examine how multispecies relations shape (de)bordering dynamics. We argue that this naturalcultural perspective deepens and complexifies analyses of power relations, while enriching our understanding of who creates borders, what borders do, and how they might be reimagined.