Rethinking Border Studies: Participation and Social Innovation in Border Zone Development

Abstract The study of emerging forms of public engagement and collective action is crucial for understanding the ongoing democratic dynamics, citizenship, and the constitution of the city's public problems. To recognize how the field of frontier studies is inseparable from the processes of experience of actors, this study focuses on the importance of the social innovation ecosystem (SIE) for the development of frontier zones. Specifically, this study revisits the main instruments of public management and border development policies to emphasize figures of civil society and their collective mobilizations on the Brazil-Bolivia border, recognizing social innovation initiatives and the main challenges they seek to solve. This path of public investigation allowed us to understand the territorial dimension of borders and expand their meaning as a living space by giving light to the actors' practices, identifying how they mobilize to repair socio-environmental inequalities.

摘要：对新兴公共参与与集体行动形式的研究，对于理解当前的民主动态、公民身份建构以及城市公共问题的生成具有至关重要的意义。为明确边境研究领域与行动者体验进程不可分割的内在关联，本研究聚焦社会创新生态系统（Social Innovation Ecosystem, SIE）对边境地区发展的核心价值。具体而言，本研究重新检视公共管理与边境发展政策的主要手段，以凸显巴西-玻利维亚边境地区的民间社会行动者及其集体动员行为，并梳理各类社会创新实践与它们旨在解决的核心挑战。通过本次研究路径，我们得以深入理解边境的空间维度，并通过阐明行动者的实践活动，拓展了边境作为鲜活空间的内涵，同时厘清了行动者如何通过动员行动来弥补社会与环境层面的不平等。