Border Formation: The Becoming Multiple of Space

This doctoral thesis examines the militarisation of the Southern border of Hungary as a process of spatial formation, expanding the debate on borders from the political to the architectural arena. Combining spatial theory with empirical research on the case study, the thesis rethinks the border as a complex spatial system, with an agency of its own. From this perspective, it contests the enforcement of spatial boundaries from the above and related ideas of fixity. It brings attention to the agency of space in the advancement of a material becoming; the role of migration in the redefinition of meanings and functions of space; and the action of technologies in the strategic manipulation of measures and scales. While conceptualising the border as a space in formation, this thesis builds a diagrammatic method of study and moves the research in an onto-epistemological direction. With the aim of fostering a change in those structures that control the partition and governance of space, this doctoral study calls the discipline of architecture to review its questions, methods, and practices. It invites to use architectural knowledge to engage with borders’ complexity and challenge their established meanings and makings.

Project Description: Since the late 1990s, the study of borders has witnessed renewed attention and expansion that looks beyond geopolitical structures and decision-making processes. The widening of border discourse has also reflected a redefinition of its spatial understanding through the refusal of linear simplifications and the search for spatial complexity. A growing number of concepts and methods try to account for the space of borders from many disciplinary angles. Nevertheless, in this investigative effort, an unsolved challenge remains in giving equal clout to theoretical and material aspects, considering them constitutive elements of the same process.

The present doctoral thesis contributes to this ongoing discussion by proposing an in-depth study of border spatiality, its material dimension, and agency. It introduces the idea of spatial formation as a concept and a method to analyse the border as a spatial system in becoming. The formation of space is understood as a diagrammatic process, in which semiotic and material relationships entangle and progressively emerge as a concrete, physical entity. Drawing from the theory of actualisation elaborated by Gilles Deleuze, the thesis examines how the border comes to be in the intricate operations of discourses, technologies, migratory movements, and actions of control. The doctoral study integrates and characterises spatial theory with the empirical research of a case study: the Hungarian Southern border with Serbia. This rather small territorial section has been recently sealed by metal fences and razor wire as an emergency response to the migratory movements of 2014-2016. The case study is not considered an exception or an isolated intervention. On the contrary, it is regarded in the frame of the conceptual and spatial effort to define the “external border” of the European Union. The thesis traces the semiotic and discursive relationships that contain the border within established meanings, both in the European and Hungarian political debates. In the frame of the border’s formation, meaning acts upon the concrete definition of spatial boundaries. This capacity becomes even more evident through the analysis of selected technologies of migration management and border control. Digital systems and infrastructures of remote surveillance put specific knowledge and information into operation, affecting the design, measurement, and visualisation of the border.

While the first part of the dissertation (chapters one to three) mainly looks at the intersections between discursive and spatial relations, chapter four shifts the attention to the terrain where the material separation appears. The theoretical reasoning and the analysis of the architectural features of the border fence are integrated with the experiential dimension of the site survey. At a close distance from the border, the alleged linearity of national divisions complicates and reveals the plasticity of space. The border proves to have the capacity to move and de-form in the dynamic, often violent, interaction of forces of control and migratory movements. It does not simply follow a design established from above, but it emerges as a material, spatial system with an agency of its own. The border actively intervenes in the negotiation between human and non-human agents, natural topography, technologies, and historical traces. In chapter five, the logbook of site surveys reduces even more the scale of observation and guides the reader across this complex spatiality. It shows the border’s actual form as a lived, crossed, and manipulated environment, in which manifold stories and struggles unfold and leave concrete traces. Chapter six examines these remains and connects the formation of space to the possibility of other modes of being at the border. Refusing any overarching, closed definition of the spatial sense of the border, the thesis is open to a multiplicity of forms, measures, and future interpretations of a space in becoming.

To conclude, the main scope of the thesis is twofold. First, it rethinks the border as a spatial system and a spatial process through materiality and the border’s own becoming. Second, it builds a research method apt to expand diagrammatically in different directions. The thesis values complexity and makes room for a growing engagement in the understanding of spatial, material, and technological features of borders. It proves that this goal can be achieved through the involvement of the architectural discipline, its knowledge, and methods which are more closely committed with a material approach to space. The present doctoral study, therefore, invites to a more diverse and committed trans-disciplinary expansion of the ongoing border dialogue.

Bio: Grazia Tona is an architect and researcher with a passion for exploring the intersections of urban phenomena and pressing societal issues. She completed her studies in architecture at the School of Architecture and Design Eduardo Vittoria of the University of Camerino in Italy, earning her master's degree in 2016. After her studies, Grazia moved to the Netherlands, where she delved into the investigation of the built environment, working in international think tanks such as Crimson Historians and Urbanists and the International New Town Institute in Rotterdam. In May 2023, Grazia obtained her doctoral degree from Delft University of Technology. Her doctoral thesis titled “Border Formation: The Becoming Multiple of Space” focuses on the spatial dimension of borders as a process of becoming, in which virtual-actual relationships intertwine and human/non-human agencies interact. By rethinking borders as spatial phenomena, Grazia seeks to unlock the trans-disciplinary potential of architectural knowledge and foster a meaningful dialogue with the humanities and other disciplines involved in the study of space.