通关:作为障碍装置的边界基础设施与跨境流动

Passing border checkpoint:Cross-border flows and border infrastructures as apparatus of obstruction

边界基础设施是维系城市运行的关键后勤媒介之一,自新冠疫情以后在城市流动的调控中尤其不可或缺,但其媒介性极少被纳入传播学的研究视野。本研究应用节奏分析的视角,通过参与式观察和深度访谈,考察珠澳市民的日常通关经历,探究边界基础设施是如何作为后勤媒介来调节城际流动的。研究发现,边界基础设施是一套通过制造与操作障碍来影响城市流动的技术装置,在城市地理的边缘地带充当城际交换的中心:通过制造障碍、阻滞流动、确立差异,激发跨境流动的多重节奏;通过操作障碍、调节阻力、维持差异,组织跨境流动的多重节奏,使其结合在不规则节奏和韵律之间振荡。与以往将媒介性理解为连接性的观点相比,边界基础设施对城市流动的中介机制凸显了障碍面向对于媒介属性的重要性;并昭示出媒介性是连接性与断裂性两极之间的连续体,且连通程度随着流与媒介的相遇而动态变化,反映出门所代表的“开关”二元逻辑的局限性,为理解媒介性提供了一种新的原型。

Border infrastructures have been key logistical media for cities for millenniums,and have taken on an increasingly crucial role in coordinating urban movements since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.However,the mediality of border infrastructures has rarely been discussed by communication and media studies.This article investigates urbanites'daily experience of passing Zhuhai-Macao borders,and explores how border infrastructures function as a logistical medium to mediate intercity flows with the method of Rhythmanalysis through participatory observation and in-depth interviews.It is found that border infrastructures are a set of technological apparatus that regulate urban flows by creating and operating obstacles at the intersection between two cities:by setting obstacles and making differences between two sides of the border,border infrastructures stimulate intercity flows and generate polyrhythmia;by imposing resistance that change constantly on intercity flows and maintaining differences,border infrastructures frequently disturb the polyrhythms of the flows,which change between arrhythmia and eurhythmia.Compared with previous literature's understanding of mediality as connectivity,the mediation mechanism of border infrastructures highlights the importance of obstructivity of media.It also demonstrates that the medium is a continuum between the two poles of connectivity and disconnectivity,and the degree of connection of two parties that media relates changes dynamically in the encounter between the medium and the flows it mediates,which reflects the limits of the binary"door"logic,and provides a new model to understand media.