Resumen de The oldest boundary in Europe? a critical approach to the Spanish-Portuguese Border: : The Raia between Galicia and Portugal
Juan Manuel Trillo Santamaría, Valerià Paül i Carril
The boundary between Spain and Portugal is supposed to be one of the most � if not the most � fixed and stable borders in the world, with some authors stating that it has a history of almost a thousand years. However, this paper demonstrates that this is not the case by arguing that it has a mobile nature. After formulating a theoretical framework on borders and border studies, this contribution focuses on the raia between Galicia and Portugal as a specific section of the international Spanish-Portuguese border; several questions elucidating the mobile nature of the raia are answered, embracing historic, geographic, social, cultural, linguistic and economic issues. The paper finishes by considering the effects of the new period of European integration and by providing some concluding remarks.
