SOAN 349: Frontiers & Borders
MW 2:45-4:00, Alumni 108
Colgate University
 Spring 2005 Professor Thomas Hall
 NEW Office:  B3 Alumni, x7042, email:  tdhall@mail.colgate.edu
 OFFICE HOURS:  M 4-5, TU 2-3, W 11-12, & by appointment
Types of Frontiers
Last Updated 1-13-02

This is drawn from several papers, presentations, and talks, but primarily from:
Hall, Thomas D.  2001.  "Using Comparative Frontiers to Explore World-Systems Analysis and International Relations." International Studies Perspectives 2:3(Aug.): 253-269 [available on Blackboard] and
Hall, Thomas D.  2005. "Borders, Borderland, and Frontiers, Global." Pp 238-242 in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Vol. 1 edited by Maryanne Cline Horowitz.  Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons. [available on Blackboard].

Factors or Variables Shaping Frontiers
· 3 types of world-systems, multiplied by
· 4 types of system boundaries, multiplied by
· at least several (say at least 3) types of nonstate groups (say, bands, tribes, and chiefdoms to take a familiar, if problematic trinity) multiplied by
· at least 4 types of frontiers: buffer vs. barrier and/or internal vs. external, multiplied by
· at least 4 types of physical differences: steppe vs. sown and/or hill vs. valley
This yields at least 576 potential types of frontiers

If in addition we attend to factors such as:
· the phase of world-system in terms of its various cycles, or what me might call world-system time,
· the motives for incorporation, especially the types of resources sought,
· the roles of the incorporated regions and peoples in the larger system,
· the overall trajectory of incorporation, including reversals of degree,
· the trajectories of change among the groups being incorporated before contact,
· the efforts of incorporated people to resist incorporation,

Problems in Need of Further Attention:
· how does resistance to incorporation in the periphery shaped the core?
· Are there regular patterns or trajectories of incorporation?
· how does the trajectory of incorporation shape subsequent frontier dynamics?
· how specifically do incorporation processes simultaneously creates ethnic homogeneity & ethnic heterogeneity?
· in precapitalist settings, how specifically does incorporation promote and/or block secondary state formation?
· in detail how do incorporation processes and trajectories differ in capitalist and precapitalist settings?

Send comments or questions to tdhall@mail.colgate.edu
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