Social Issues of Border Residents: Otherness, Media Representation and Securing the Space

This article investigates that in what discourse the social issues of the border dwellers do not become problematic. We have chosen the theory of Orientalism (internal) in order to explain the non-problematization of social issues. According to this theory, the general approach of the center is alienation in the peripheral (border) areas, and by creating dualities (linguistic, ethnic and religious), it attempts to securitization of space and implement the policy of assimilation. The general research method is the historical-documentary method. The analysis of media representation shows that out of 781 search items (from 2000 to 2021), the most news about the economic field with 456 news (58%), followed by the security field with 283 news (36%) and then the social and cultural issues of the border dwellers are only 28 news (3.5%), which is an indication of the non-existence of the social issues of the border dwellers. According to the findings, the most prominent social issues of the border areas are massive migrations, the existence of multidimensional poverty, high illiteracy rate, educational situation and inappropriate health treatment situation. The main issue in the current policies is, first, the approach of alienation, and at a lower level, the emphasis is on economic factors and solutions. Economic solutions have not been successful due to weak laws and implementation defects. The suggestion of this research is to adopt a pluralistic approach and simultaneously pay attention to the internal capabilities of bordering regions, villages and cities, such as paying attention to the agricultural economy, expanding welfare services (educational and health), expanding the individual capabilities of people and paying attention to the social development of these areas.