The borderland

People travel for tourism, for working, for escaping from the home country, for missionary reasons or for exploring new lands. By so doing, they cross borders which make their own identity different from the previous state becoming a migrant, an exiled, a tourist, a helper or a conqueror. Border shows its difficulties in being unambiguously defined. For instance, to which of the contiguous areas it belongs? Neither one of the single-bounded regions is sufficient for that. Border is not just a non-place, but is a space with its own characteristics that makes living there very specific, regulating the dynamic with the surroundings and even the way of thinking, acting and feeling. Living in a borderland makes the identity of the inhabitants and their meaning-making process very peculiar. The way in which the border residents perceive the relationship between the self, the others and the environment, as well as their process of meaning-making is unavoidably linked with the existence of the border itself, with all its ambivalent theoretical features and practical implications in settling the daily activities and the human psychological functioning.