Au centre de l’Amérique du Sud : des frontières leviers de territorialisation

This paper focuses on a diachronic analysis of the borders of the centre of the South American continent. It shows how their constitution and evolution depend on a double logic of places and flows, less antinomic than it seems at first sight. Established in the “diagonal of emptiness” in South America, between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, they were first constituted as political and symbolic places: the edge of civilization, the dividing line of the world, and then, following independence, the limits of national territories. However, on the ground they are almost invisible, they are only places in the sense that they are positions on a map. But the history does not end there. From the 1960s onwards, these “empty borders” became the horizons of the conquest processes, especially in the context of the internal colonization projects. The pioneer front must join the imaginary line, so that the frontier can be fully realized, form a barrier and close the territory. In this process of settlement, the frontier gains in consistency and finally becomes part of the local space. But the time of border projects is not completely over. With the promotion of a new regionalism in South America, borders are being reshaped according to power flows emanating from the political centre.