This interdisciplinary volume maintains the importance of a spatial understanding of society and history.

List of contributors; Preface and Acknowledgements; Part I. Introduction: 1. Mental maps and virtual checkpoints: struggles to construct and maintain State and social boundaries Joel S. Migdal; Part II. On the Eve of the Nation-State: The Ottoman Empire: 2. Do states always favor stasis? Changing status of tribes in the Ottoman empire Resart Kasaba; 3. The preamble boundaries of Ottoman jewry Sarah Abrevya Stein; Part III. The State and 'Dangerous Populations': 4. 'Dangerous populations': state territoriality and the constitution of national minorities Adriana Kemp; 5. Making Myanmars: language, territory, and belonging in post-socialist Burma Mary Callahan; 6. Institutionalizing virtual Kurdistan West: pro-Kurdish politics in Western Europe Nicole Watts; Part IV. Inscribing Membership and Contesting Membership in the Nation: 7. Challenging boundaries and belongings: 'mixed blood' allotment disputes at the turn of the twentieth century Lauren Basson; 8. Belonging and not: civil boundaries in Rossland, BC during the Great War Kenneth Lawson; 9. Boundaries and belonging in conditions of extreme politicization: the Chinese state in private and public spaces, 1949-1968 Neil Diamant; 10. Reproductions and maintenance of group boundaries: Why the 'secular' Wtate matters to religious authorities in Israel Patricia Woods; Part V. Beyond the State: Transnational Forces and the Challenge to the State: 11. Belonging in the PACE lane: fast border-crossing and citizenship in the age of neoliberalism Matthew Sparke; 12. Contested boundaries: citizens, states, and the supranational belonging in the European Union Lisa Conant; 13. Boundaries of the nation-state and the lure of the Islamic community in Turkey Yesim Arat; Part VI. Conclusion: Conclusion Beatrice Hibou; Index.