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Frontier Encounters: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border
Author: Franck Billé, Grégory Delaplace and Caroline Humphrey (eds.) 
China and
Russia are rising economic and political powers that share thousands of miles of border. Yet, despite their proximity, their practical, local interactions with each other — and with their third neighbour
Mongolia — are rarely discussed. The three countries share a boundary, but their traditions, languages and worldviews are remarkably different.
This collective volume is the outcome of a network project funded by the ESRC (RES-075-25_0022) entitled "Where Empires Meet: The Border Economies of Russia, China and Mongolia”. The project, based at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (University of Cambridge), ran from 28 January 2010 to 27 January 2011.
Read more about the project and Frontier Encounters here.
Since publication this book has been viewed over 900 times. Last updated March 2013.
Title: Frontier Encounters
Frontier Encounters presents a wide range of views on how the borders between these unique countries are enacted, produced, and crossed. It sheds light on global uncertainties:
This collective volume is the outcome of a network project funded by the ESRC (RES-075-25_0022) entitled "Where Empires Meet: The Border Economies of Russia, China and Mongolia”. The project, based at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (University of Cambridge), ran from 28 January 2010 to 27 January 2011.
Read more about the project and Frontier Encounters here.
Since publication this book has been viewed over 900 times. Last updated March 2013.
Title: Frontier Encounters
Subtitle: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border
Editors: Billé, Franck
Delaplace, Grégory
Humphrey, Caroline
Publication date: September 2012
Dimensions: 6.14" x 9.21"
Paperback ISBN: 978-1906924-87-4
BIC subject codes: JHMC (social and cultural anthropology, ethnography); RGCP (political geography)
Frontier Encounters: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border, edited by Franck Billé, Grégory Delaplace and Caroline Humphrey, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
Frontier Encounters: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border, edited by Franck Billé, Grégory Delaplace and Caroline Humphrey, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence.
1. A Slightly Complicated Door: The Ethnography and Conceptualisation of North Asian Borders
Grégory Delaplace
2. On Ideas of the Border in the Russian and Chinese Social Imaginaries
Franck Billé
3. Rethinking Borders in Empire and Nation at the Foot of the Willow Palisade
Uradyn E. Bulag
4. Concepts of "Russia" and their Relation to the Border with China
Caroline Humphrey
5. Chinese Migrants and Anti-Chinese Sentiments in Russian Society
Viktor Dyatlov
6. The Case of the Amur as a Cross-Border Zone of Illegality
Natalia Ryzhova
7. Prostitution and the Transformation of the Chinese Trading Town of Ereen
Gaëlle Lacaze
8. Ritual, Memory and the Buriad Diaspora Notion of Home
Sayana Namsaraeva
9. Politicisation of Quasi-Indigenousness on the Russo-Chinese Frontier
Ivan Peshkov
10. People of the Border: The Destiny of the Shenehen Buryats
Marina Baldano
11. The Persistence of the Nation-State at the Chinese-Kazakh Border
Ross Anthony
12. Neighbours and their Ruins: Remembering Foreign Presences in Mongolia
Grégory Delaplace
Appendix 1: Border-Crossing Infrastructure: The Case of the Russian-Mongolian Border
Valentin Batomunkuev
Appendix 2: Maps
Franck Billé is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, and member of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge. His current project focuses on representation and mimicry in the twin cities of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe, on the Sino-Russian border. He previously carried out research in Mongolia where he investigated the prevalence of anti-Chinese sentiments. He has published articles in Inner Asia, Cambridge Anthropology and Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Spectral Presences: Anxiety, Excess and Anti-Chinese Speech in Postsocialist Mongolia. He can be contacted at franck.bille@gmail.com.
Grégory Delaplace is a social anthropologist, working as a lecturer at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre. His most recent research concerned the political dimension of the invisible in Mongolia today (or the invisible dimension of politics), whereby ghosts, or spirits, are led to play a role in the postsocialist nation building process. His publications include L’invention des morts. Sépultures, fantômes et photographie en Mongolie contemporaine (2009), and Parasitic Chinese, Vengeful Russians: Strangers, Ghosts and Reciprocity in Mongolia (2012). He can be contacted at gregory.delaplace@mae.u-paris10.fr.
Caroline Humphrey is an anthropologist based at the University of Cambridge who has worked in Russia, Mongolia, China, India, Nepal and Ukraine. She has researched a wide range of themes including Soviet and post-Soviet provincial economy and society; Buryat and Daur shamanism; Jain religion and ritual; trade and barter in Nepal; environment and the pastoral economy in Mongolia; and the history and contemporary situation of Buddhism, especially in Inner Mongolia. Her recent research has concerned urban transformations in post-Socialist cities. She can be contacted at ch10001@hermes.cam.ac.uk.