Simina Guga
‘Borders are scratched across the hearts of men by strangers with a calm, judicial pen, and when the borders bleed, we watch with dread the lines of ink along the map turn red’.
(Marya Mannes)

To meet a person from your own country on the other side of the world is not a surprising coincidence anymore. We are all spread across spaces for different reasons Movement has always represented one of our main coordinates. Motion can have different meanings for different people: a necessity, a life strategy, a leisure time activity, a way of challenging closed structures (nation-states), a proclamation or definition of freedom, etc…but nevertheless, a different experience for all.

We all know that by the mid 20th century the world’s territory and population was already devised in states and nations. Every person was a citizen and “home” was referring to the country that ascribed him this status. Therefore, mobility as a ‘phenomenon’ related to human nature is taking place in a world that is divided by physical and symbolical frontiers defining territories of different nation-states and peoples.

State borders changed their meaning in time, according to different political regimes that govern their territory. For example, even if some countries from the former Soviet Block managed to negotiate their border regime during the ‘90s and to slowly create a certain freedom of movement for their citizens, this process would have restricted the mobility of others in a social, political, economical and cultural process of chain reaction.

The topic of borders needs to be approached as a whole by considering both the physical and symbolical aspects that it embraces. But in these blogs I will not talk about borders in general, but instead try to focus on physical frontiers by describing my own personal experiences related to mobility. The symbolical aspects might be more complex and might need a separate discussion, because, as we all know, symbolical borders are more present in our everyday lives, separating people even within physical proximity.

I am a 25 year old student living in Bucharest.

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