A Body, A Borderland - the Biopolitics of the Irish Border(s)

Calvin Po, MArch (Year: 5)

Cartography is violent. The border spatialises state power, and in Ireland, embodies long-running conflicts over self-determination. Despite its openness, it remains a limit of jurisdiction, and for marginalised bodies, such as women seeking abortions or transgender people, a source of systemic violence. The Irish border is in fact carried by each body. “Sovereign territory” is idealised fiction. The 1924 Irish Boundary Commission’s failed attempt to redraw the border demonstrably exemplified problematics of dividing interconnected peoples, economies, geographies, with a line. Mapping Ireland was inherently colonial, and the IBC’s arbitrary interpretation of “wishes of inhabitants” continues legacies of the cartographic gaze’s power, vested in few, imposed on bodies of many. When territory as an idea engenders violence, this project proposes deterritorialising sovereignty, basing it on the space of an individual body as a provocation. In Derry/Londonderry, where its bipartisan names are part of the conflict, what becomes of urban life if our association with a state isn’t based on territorial coincidence, but the body’s choice? May urban flows of people become new maps of the nation, with architecture as the boundary treaty? When the nation is built on the body, how may the body rebuild our understanding of the conflict, and the nation? pocalvin@gmail.com
The Irish border's spaces are not just the map's line, but everywhere bodies must interact with an apparatus of state. Even how road signs are written are drawn into the conflict over sovereignty.

The Irish border's spaces are not just the map's line, but everywhere bodies must interact with an apparatus of state. Even how road signs are written are drawn into the conflict over sovereignty.

Hard border for abortion rights: due to its criminalisation in Northern Ireland (until October 2019), women were forced to navigate complex bureaucracies of different jurisdictions for an abortion.

Hard border for abortion rights: due to its criminalisation in Northern Ireland (until October 2019), women were forced to navigate complex bureaucracies of different jurisdictions for an abortion.

Hard border in gender: for a Northern-Irish-born transgender person, incompatible gender recognition processes, paperwork & citizenship laws means two legal gender identities for dual citizens.

Hard border in gender: for a Northern-Irish-born transgender person, incompatible gender recognition processes, paperwork & citizenship laws means two legal gender identities for dual citizens.

The "borderless" Common Travel Area between UK and Ireland actually varies by nationality: non-EU citizens & people of colour are subject to incompatible visa policies and racial profiling.

The "borderless" Common Travel Area between UK and Ireland actually varies by nationality: non-EU citizens & people of colour are subject to incompatible visa policies and racial profiling.

Borders in the body: rights & restrictions a body derives from a state’s authority change when crossing a border. A timeline across jurisdictions of the British Isles, throughout a human lifetime.

The 1924 Irish Boundary Commission, attempting to redraw the border according to "inhabitants' wishes", selected assumptions that when tested, vastly determines & changes the placement of the border.

The 1924 Irish Boundary Commission, attempting to redraw the border according to "inhabitants' wishes", selected assumptions that when tested, vastly determines & changes the placement of the border.

Bodily sovereignty already exists: in this car accident that happens just across the border in Ireland, driver & victim, both British-resident, carries over British jurisdiction over liabilities.

Bodily sovereignty already exists: in disputed loughs on both sides of the border, it is through the body (& its place of residence), not the disputed border line, that jurisdiction is determined.

A visualisation of the individualised border condition and its performativity through life in Derry/Londonderry, with found testimonies of Northern Irish voices transgressing binaries of the conflict.

When sovereignty is based on the body, boundary-making reaches new spatial & temporal resolutions. Movement through the city becomes a new map of the nation, with architecture as its boundary treaty.