Boundary Thinking Transformed

Abstract

Boundary Thinking Transformed aims to explore the idea of boundaries in the context of protected areas. We wanted to explore what boundaries are for people who have experienced them as part of their lives. We wanted to tackle what “across boundaries” might mean, and what “crossing boundaries” might look and feel like. We wanted to learn more about boundaries, how they affect us, and how might they be changing—or be changed themselves. Our contributing authors bring personal experiences and observations built over lifetimes. They took up our challenge and wrote deeply and personally about what boundaries mean to them. For some, boundaries create opportunity for research and study. For others, boundaries are uninformed abstractions bereft of meaning, inspiring the need for blurring or erasing. For still others, boundaries created spaces unintended for them. For all, boundaries in the context of parks and protected areas revealed the need to learn more together about how connected and related all things are. The authors’ writings challenge us to see our own biases, reflect on what we think we know to be true, and invite us to reimagine how boundaries can be used to create inclusiveness, set aside intolerance, celebrate different ways of knowing, and share power and decision-making. The insights shared, when applied to protected areas, confronts the difference between how things are and how things ought to be. The first article, “Rethinking Boundaries in a Half Earth World,” is