MAURICE PAULISSEN, ROY VAN BEEK, EDWARD H. HUIJBENS
{"title":"沼泽是如何形成边疆的:约670 -约1900年的东部低地国家","authors":"MAURICE PAULISSEN, ROY VAN BEEK, EDWARD H. HUIJBENS","doi":"10.3828/096734022x16627150608050","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have radically turned away from the notion of ‘natural borders’ dictated by nature and now broadly agree that all borders are ‘artificial’ human constructs. However, there is a need to revisit environmental determinism in its nuances. We analyse the relation between distinct natural features and historical border development, using the notion of affordances and the example of raised bogs in the medieval and modern-period eastern Low Countries. For humans, bog landscapes in these periods functioned as both barriers and passageways through the spatiotemporal variability of these opposite affordances. At the scale of local settlement territories, large bog landscapes had the coercive agency to function as borderlands separating adjacent communities. Such coercion was absent on the larger spatial scale of princedoms. The growing economic importance of peat was a crucial driver for border demarcation at both scales from the late Middle Ages. Diplomatic risk calculation and path dependency explain the spatial concurrence and long persistence respectively of bog boundaries between successive polities.","PeriodicalId":45574,"journal":{"name":"Environment and History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"How Bogs Made for Borderlands: The Eastern Low Countries, c. 670 – c. 1900 <scp>ce</scp>\",\"authors\":\"MAURICE PAULISSEN, ROY VAN BEEK, EDWARD H. HUIJBENS\",\"doi\":\"10.3828/096734022x16627150608050\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Scholars have radically turned away from the notion of ‘natural borders’ dictated by nature and now broadly agree that all borders are ‘artificial’ human constructs. However, there is a need to revisit environmental determinism in its nuances. We analyse the relation between distinct natural features and historical border development, using the notion of affordances and the example of raised bogs in the medieval and modern-period eastern Low Countries. For humans, bog landscapes in these periods functioned as both barriers and passageways through the spatiotemporal variability of these opposite affordances. At the scale of local settlement territories, large bog landscapes had the coercive agency to function as borderlands separating adjacent communities. Such coercion was absent on the larger spatial scale of princedoms. The growing economic importance of peat was a crucial driver for border demarcation at both scales from the late Middle Ages. Diplomatic risk calculation and path dependency explain the spatial concurrence and long persistence respectively of bog boundaries between successive polities.\",\"PeriodicalId\":45574,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Environment and History\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.8000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-10-20\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Environment and History\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.3828/096734022x16627150608050\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"历史学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q4\",\"JCRName\":\"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environment and History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3828/096734022x16627150608050","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
How Bogs Made for Borderlands: The Eastern Low Countries, c. 670 – c. 1900 ce
Scholars have radically turned away from the notion of ‘natural borders’ dictated by nature and now broadly agree that all borders are ‘artificial’ human constructs. However, there is a need to revisit environmental determinism in its nuances. We analyse the relation between distinct natural features and historical border development, using the notion of affordances and the example of raised bogs in the medieval and modern-period eastern Low Countries. For humans, bog landscapes in these periods functioned as both barriers and passageways through the spatiotemporal variability of these opposite affordances. At the scale of local settlement territories, large bog landscapes had the coercive agency to function as borderlands separating adjacent communities. Such coercion was absent on the larger spatial scale of princedoms. The growing economic importance of peat was a crucial driver for border demarcation at both scales from the late Middle Ages. Diplomatic risk calculation and path dependency explain the spatial concurrence and long persistence respectively of bog boundaries between successive polities.
期刊介绍:
Environment and History is an interdisciplinary journal which aims to bring scholars in the humanities and biological sciences closer together, with the deliberate intention of constructing long and well-founded perspectives on present day environmental problems. Articles appearing in Environment and History are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, British Humanities Index, CAB Abstracts, Environment Abstracts, Environmental Policy Abstracts, Forestry Abstracts, Geo Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, History Journals Guide, International Bibliography of Social Sciences, Landscape Research Extra, Referativnyi Zhurnal, Rural Sociology Abstracts, Social Sciences in Forestry and World Agricultural Economics.