This document provides information about an upcoming book club discussion on the book "How borders make and break our world" by James Crawford. It will be led by Alan Parkinson, the past president of the GA Conference. The discussion will include an audio excerpt from the book, background on the author, and activities that could be used to teach about borders using the book. It also lists additional border-related readings and questions for consideration about significant current borders and effective teaching strategies.

1. GA Conference 2023
Book Club discussion
Alan Parkinson
GA Past President 2022-23

2. “How borders make and
break our world.”
James Crawford
Canongate Books (2022)
Paperback out August 2023.

3. The author
https://www.jamescrawford.space/
https://twitter.com/Jdcrawf

4. Recent events

6. The Edge of the Plain
Audible extract
5’35”

7. “A border is such a simple idea.
Step across a line, whether you can see it or not, and
you’re somewhere else.
The landscape may look exactly the same, one blade of
grass to the next, but you are in another place, another
country.
Perhaps the people speak another language. Their
cultures, practices, laws and ideas may be completely
different.
Perhaps you can be completely different too: who you are
and how you live your life may not be permissible.”

8. “On one side of the border may be the promise of wealth,
on the other the certainty of poverty.
What you read or who you love may be free for you to
choose, or may be punishable by prison, even death.
It means that these lines, fences, walls or checkpoints -
and the spaces they inhabit - possess immense power.
Nothing is different and yet everything is different.
This is, as the writer Amitav Ghosh put it in his description
of the Indian Partition, “the enchantment of lines”.

9. Borders are not new…

10. https://twitter.com/Jdcrawf
& not fair…
The thickness of
pencil lines drawn in
1948 on 1:250,000
British survey maps
resulted in ‘one long,
snaking corridor of
imprecise, debatable
land’.

11. https://twitter.com/Jdcrawf
..or finished…

12. https://twitter.com/Jdcrawf
..or manmade…

13. https://walledoffhotel.com/

15. “At the end of the Cold War, just 12 border walls stood around the globe.
Today that figure has risen to 74, with the majority constructed since the
beginning of the 2000s. What is becoming less clear, however, is what they
are actually dividing.”
Which barriers and borders do you (currently)
teach about?
What activities do you use when teaching about them?

16. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/10/u
s-west-fire-season-california-oregon-climate-action

17. Salt Lake City - Utah
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/18/salt-lake-city-mayor-erin-
mendenhall-utah-great-lake-decline-climate-crisis

19. Ötzi:the Ice Man
The Edge of the Plain
Audible extract
Chapter 8
46’38”

20. Italian border - discovery of body

21. https://3seaseurope.com/otzi-austria-italy-arguement

22. How will I use this book?

24. 1932

25. Some obvious borders…
https://www.geography.org.uk/Journal-Issue/fb5c6db5-fbad-4a93-aca1-
8510d709cbd9

27. Review in ‘Geographical Magazine’
It features the Haragas – ‘those who burn’ –
the desperate individuals who duct tape their
feet so they can scale the razor-wire fences
that surround Melilla, one of two Spanish
enclaves in Morocco and Europe’s only border
with Africa.
The border marks ‘an eightfold difference in
GDP per capita’; no wonder the Haragas ‘burn’
with longing to cross over. They speak of their
need to make a ‘crossing’ in terms of
addiction, obsession, a quasi-religious calling.
But what lies beyond? Beatings, incarceration,
a ‘hot return’ to the border, or perhaps a better
life.
https://geographical.co.uk/book-reviews/review-the-edge-of-the-plain-by-james-crawford
Ceuta - visited by Simon Reeve

28. Other reading

29. Activities using a book
- Create a booklet to read alongside
- Guided reading extracts
- Audible file - listening and responding
- Vocabulary builder - using key words
Which barriers and borders could / should
you teach about?
What other activities could you use with
texts?

30. Image: Claire Kyndt

31. What are the
world’s most
significant
borders
currently?
https://twitter.com/simongerman600
/status/1644824947947126790

32. Monocle
https://monocle.com/radio/shows/meet-the-writers/377/

33. Reading
https://time.com/6256611/borders-as-we-know-them-wont-survive-the-
century-to-come
Klaus Dodds: ‘Border Wars’
Tim Marshall’s trilogy of books
Alan Parkinson: ‘The Ice Man’
Borders: A Very Short Introduction
John Lanchester: ‘The Wall’

34. Finally - now out in
paperback - last year’s
GA Conference
keynote speaker.