Abstract: This essay seeks to explore the shifting definitions of the borderland as a geopolitical space, a territorial gateway, a contact zone, a liminal terrain, a “state of exception,” and an imaginary portal. It looks into the intersection of ethnic, linguistic, cultural, political and ecological dynamics that inform the cartography of the Chinese borderland, from the Northeast to the Southwest, from Inner Mongolia to Tibet, and from Nanyang (Southeast Asia) to diaspora. It reflects on the recent interdisciplinary growth in understanding the characteristics of borders and frontiers, including migration and settlement, cultural hybridity, and transnationalism. It also examines the boundaries of literature as it manifests itself in multiple forms of media and mediation. The essay focuses on four topics: bordering land, the human condition of precarity, imagined non-community and borderland as literature.

Key words: borderland, precarity, “imagined non-community”, the other land

摘要： 边地位于内与外、我者与他者的接壤或分野区域,是本土通向异邦的门户,也是防止外力渗透或入侵的要冲。但边地的含义并不止于政治地理的限定,更延伸为一种心理闳域,一种族群、文化、经贸的接触、交错或隔离的情境,甚至一种想像时空的投射。本文即以此为重点,提供以下四个论述方向,并以当代华语/中文叙事文学——从东北到西南,从蒙藏到台湾,甚至境外的南洋——作为实例。第一,从拓扑学角度,以内外、华夷、风土作为切入点,思考边地与中原、我者与他者、经验与想象之间此消彼长的关系;第二,聚焦作为“人间”情境的边地经验及其“危脆性”;第三,从“想象的‘非'共同体”角度,直面边地异质特征,判别不同的声腔、语感、文法,并重现族群历史经验的斑驳性;第四,探寻“边地”“文学”互为表里的吊诡性,其极至处,是对“他方”的投射与想象。

关键词: 边地, 危脆性, “想象的‘非'共同体”, 他方