National Border Orthodoxy

The established, institutionalized set of beliefs about borders that dominate political discourse—the often-unexamined assumptions that borders are natural, that nations have rights to control them, that border enforcement is legitimate, that unauthorized crossing is criminal, that citizenship is earned by birth or naturalization, and that the current border regime is the only possible one. National border orthodoxy includes specific commitments: that states have sovereign rights over territory, that controlling movement is essential to sovereignty, that borders protect culture and economy, that open borders would be chaotic, that border enforcement is morally justified. Like all orthodoxies, it provides a framework for thinking about movement and belonging, but it functions as ideology—making borders seem natural and eternal, obscuring their historical contingency and their violence, and delegitimizing alternative arrangements (free movement, open borders, post-national citizenship). National border orthodoxy determines what migration policies are considered "realistic," what border arrangements are "necessary," and who counts as "reasonable" versus "naive" in debates about movement.

Example: "He assumed that borders are just part of how the world works—not because he'd examined their history, but because national border orthodoxy had made them seem like natural features of reality. The orthodoxy's power is making human creations feel like forces of nature."

by Dumu The Void March 17, 2026