Final Report Summary - EUBORDERSCAPES (Bordering, Political Landscapes and Social Arenas: Potentials and Challenges of Evolving Border Concepts in a post-Cold War World)
Executive Summary:
Dramatic situations at and around Europe’s borders have become part of everyday life and they trouble us for many reasons. Not only does the steady stream of people seeking safety from violence and a better future remind us daily of the conflict-ridden reality of the world, we are also forced to confront Europe’s own contradictions and failures. The promises of a borderless Europe, a political community built on solidarity and a pan-European liberal open society appear to be succumbing to fear, xenophobia, opportunism and, in some cases, sheer ignorance. Within this backdrop, the EUBORDERSCAPES project, financed though the EU’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, has represented an international and multidisciplinary consortium that has tracked and interpreted conceptual change in the study of borders. The total budget of the project, which finished inMay 2016, is 6,9 Million Euros. The consortium included 22 partner institutions from 17 different states, including several non-EU countries.
The EUBORDERSCAPES project has analyzed conceptual change in relation to fundamental social, economic, cultural and geopolitical transformations that have taken place in the past decades. In addition, major paradigmatic shifts in scientific debate, and in the social sciences in particular, are also considered. The project has been able to provide a nuanced and critical understanding of borders as resources in terms of the exercise of power, the management of conflict, cross-border co-operation, and the everyday negotiation of borders. The project has also investigated how state borders reflect tensions as well as points of connection within intercultural and interstate relations.
State borders are the frame of reference, rather than ethnographic/anthropological boundaries. However, this approach has emphasised the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating “objective” categories of state territoriality and international relations. The research undertaken here has not only been focused at the more general, at times highly abstract, level of conceptual change. This approach will also allow us to compare and contrast how different and often contested conceptualisations of state borders (in terms of their political, social, cultural and symbolic significance) resonate in concrete contexts at the level of everyday life.
In terms of project outcomes, EUBORDERSCAPES research activities have reflected different ways in which political and social borders condition understandings of Europe and a sense of European citizenship and participation. Strands of conceptual change have been derived through the analysis of political language and discursive shifts:
▪ Singling out the most important counter-concepts (Europe – non-Europe, East-West, North vs. South, ‘us’-‘them’, etc.)
▪ The construction of borders and socio-spatial delimitations via discourses of othering, inclusion and exclusion; metaphors of the bridge, the gate, the flank, etc.
▪ Drawing attention to political and institutional contexts and their implications: who produces the given conceptualization, what are/were the stakes.
▪ Developing policy relevant perspectives on borders as they impact social issues such as migration, inclusion, belonging and cross-border cooperation
Project Context and Objectives:
EUBORDERSCAPES is an international research undertaking that has tracked and interpreted conceptual change with regard to state borders. The consortium responded to the European Commission’s 2011 call which indicated a clear concern with the wider political and social consequences of borders. In our specific interpretation of the call, the project consortium understood that de-bordering, itself a hallmark of European integration and an undeniable achievement of enlargement processes, is part of a permanent, recursive and self-referential process of border-making that takes place simultaneously at many different levels. More basically, however, bordering is an intimate part of the constitution of society. Bordering reflects the struggles and contestations inherent in social communication, it is part of that which keeps societies together and recognisable as such, but is also a social force that signals adaptation and transformation. As a result, de-borderung is neither irreversable nor does it necessarily signify a turn towards more cosmopolitan understandings of citizenship and belonging. In this sense, greater awareness of how and why (re)bordering takes place is essential to understanding Europe, the political and social potentials of European Union and the possibility of more open European societies.
As part of our basic methodology, the EUBORDERSCAPES consortium studied the manner in which social, economic, cultural and geopolitical change, particularly since 1989, has influenced understandings of state borders. This has also included an engagement with major paradigmatic shifts in scientific debate, and in the social sciences in particular, will also be considered. State borders are the basic frame of reference but ethnographic/anthropological boundaries are also considered. More importantly however, this approach emphasises the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating “objective” categories of state territoriality and international relations. The present state of debate indicates that the field of border studies has opened up possibilities for questioning the rationales behind everyday border-making by understanding borders as institutions, processes and symbols. Borders are thus not given, they emerge through socio-political processes of border-making or bordering that take place within society.
Since its inception in June 2012 EUBORDERSCAPES has been studying evolving concepts of borders in three major ways: 1) as an important reflection of political, social and cultural change, 2) as an indicator of possible responses to this change and 3) in terms of the differences that state borders make in societal terms – to the opportunities, aspirations, dignity and recognition of groups and individuals. EUBORDERSCAPES will thus focus on the emerging epistemologies of how state borders are perceived, understood, experienced and exploited as political and social resources.
The project is also exploring different areas of conceptual change that can be assumed to have concrete impacts on the ways borders both condition and are conditioned by different institutions and actors. In progressing beyond the state of the art, EUBORDERSCAPES is attempting to demonstrate that important connections can be uncovered between borders as a “challenge” to national (and EU) policies and borders as potential elements of political innovation through conceptual (re) framings of social, political, economic and cultural spaces. The project provides a nuanced and critical re-reading and understanding of borders as resources in terms of the exercise of power, the management of conflict, cross-border co-operation, and the everyday negotiation of borders by “ordinary” citizens and non-citizens. State borders also reflect and thus help us interpret tensions as well as points of connection within intercultural and interstate relations.
Reflecting the ambitious agenda as defined by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Science and Innovation (“The Changing Concept of Borders” - Topic 4.2.1 in the 2011 Call) EUBORDERSCAPES has elaborated a number of research perspectives. The project has also linked a number of social, political and methodological issues in order to develop a truly interdisciplinary approach that includes:
• Socio-cultural dynamics and strategies that inform (and link) regional, national, and supranational/transnational notions of borders (e.g. understanding European borders as symbolic representations of different degrees of cultural affinity, familiarity and “otherness”)
• Questions of governance, democracy, territoriality, solidarity, and legal bases of state sovereignty that are raised by the “securitisation” of borders both between Schengen and non-Schengen EU as well as at the EU’s external frontiers
• In similar fashion, the practical consequences of hardening EU external borders at the same time that new regional co-operation mechanisms (such the European Neighbourhood Policy) and more open regional economic spaces are being negotiated
• The development and consequences of everyday forms of transnationalism, border-transcending, border-negotiating and networking, both within the EU and between the EU and “third countries”. Everyday transnationalism is closely linked to issues of intersectionality (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality) as part of the negotiation of borders for work, family, emotional and other reasons. This will also have direct impacts on work, welfare and immigrant rights that could challenge national welfare systems
• Processes of conceptual change that condition the production of geographical knowledge and representations of regional and cultural spaces that are used to frame social arenas and political landscapes
• The “mapping” of borders as a methodological challenge that incorporates new ethnographic insights, everyday experience, tacit knowledges of borders and border regions and cultural/emotional encounters at borders into the state of art of border research
• The potential of borders as resources in the development of different forms of cross-border co-operation and conflict amelioration
These different but largely interlinked research dimensions have provided an agenda for a more complex understanding of state borders. The common denominator in these research dimensions is the fact that shifting concepts of borders are challenging received notions of how states, state territories, citizenship and identity relate to each other. As a consequence, new ways of thinking of and dealing with borders as tools for framing social and political action are required in order to more genuinely reflect their impacts at various spatial levels of socio-cultural, political and economic interaction.
In performing empirical research EUBORDERSCAPES has drawn from various sources, such as key academic debates, political discourses, ethnographic research, media representations and shifting cultural understandings of the construction of national borders, the project aims to shed light especially on tensions between national understandings in terms of demarcations based on ethnicity, citizenship, language and socio-cultural characteristics, etc., and broader supranational/transnational understandings which address borders as areas of contact (and, to an extent, transition) between civilisations, religious and cultural spheres. In doing this, the project will also attempt to illuminate the consequences of restrictive and securitised border regimes for interstate and intercultural dialogue.
Three important strands of research in this area are: 1) the analysis of borders as markers of historical memory and local identity, 2) the analysis of borders as conditioners of local milieu and everyday attitudes and 3) the analysis of community routines that develop around borders or that are disrupted by border (in)security. Border regions (or “Borderlands”) reflect all of these aspects as they are themselves defined by historical memories of life at borders as well as how by the active engagement of borderlanders with changing border symbolisms and functions. Although formal state boundaries often serve as a reference point in discussions of territory, identity and Europe, it is not just the physical border itself but its various representations that are at issue.
Finally, most of the issues discussed above either directly or indirectly involve ethical issues. Indeed, the resurgence of ethical issues in more contemporary border studies is characteristic of the critical turn in the social sciences since the 1980s. The contemporary ethical focus in border studies challenges the militarization and securitization of everyday life as a result of increasing disparities between cultures and societies but also of ideological cleavages. In addition, discriminatory and often even racist exploitations of the border through official border regimes, visa regulations, immigration policies and treatment of asylum seekers are investigated. As such contemporary research demonstrates how borders lend themselves symbolically and physically (in the form of barriers and controls) to xenophobic exploitation of fear and the reproduction of negative cultural stereotypes. This is particularly evident in the European context where the political concept of “open borders” has been decoded as a partial policy of exclusion that emphasizes border management and that has submitted state boundaries within Europe to general policing and security policies. Examples of ethical perspectives in border studies are:
- a focus on state violence and its consequences for groups and individuals
- interrogating potentials for a democratic governance of borders
- exclusion and discrimination
Border securitization directly affects individual rights, privacy and confidentiality. The sharing of information by intelligence agencies and links between different control networks or databases easily elude democratic control; in Europe the Schengen Information System (SIS), has been criticized for its “democratic unaccountability”. Borders also receive critical scrutiny as they are unevenly permeable for different groups depending on origin, citizenship, material situations and socio-professional background; borders are thus inevitably related with discrimination and social injustice. For instance, the growing closure of EU external borders is compared with legalized apartheid: “the law of birth” determines the people’s mobility across the world.
Even a brief and incomplete outlook on the most important concepts in border studies shows, firstly, their diversity, thematic and disciplinary dispersion and differentiation. Secondly, it demonstrates two impressive paradigmatic shifts: from drawing an optimistic perspective of a “borderless world” (or the “europeanisation” of national borders) to a focus on re-bordering, fencing and increasing securitization which risks to be perpetuated by the growing security-industrial complex and its powerful lobbies and even more by the crisis and the reconfiguration of territorial identities provoked by globalization. New technologies marked the transition in the bordering logics from securing territories and properly borders to securing and filtrating flows. These technologies are erasing the difference between borders and internal regions and are transforming all state territory in a “reticular” borderland. Paradoxically, technological progress did not facilitate human mobility but created new obstacles for it and, moreover, generated new risks on human rights abuse and new moral and ethical problems. The 1990s fad of a “borderless world” was short-lived; on the contrary political boundaries are a bio-ethno-social constant of the human society’s life, because without membranes, it is impossible to regulate the exchange between the ethnic and/or the state territory and the outer world, protecting this territory from the chaos and the waste of human and material resources.
The present state of border studies indicates that recent developments have deeply changed the power of borders; they have modified the dialectical relation between their fixed nature and constantly changing, fluid regime and framed the impact of borders on human activities in a new way. Borders not only have a different meaning for different actors but are a manifestation of power relations in society at different scales. In particular, they reflect the normative power of international organizations, including the EU and the power asymmetry between states in different fields. A review of recent publications shows the lack of comparative and quantitative approaches in border studies. At the same time, border studies open practical ways to the transformation of disputed sections of borders into “borders of peace”. Borders are a crucial condition for openness and cooperation. But these can be achieved only through multilevel, multi-sectoral and long-term approaches that involve transformation at the international, national and local levels. This, in turn, demands cultural changes and new kinds of thinking on both sides of any given border.
Project Results:
S/T Results and Foreground of EUBORDERSCAPES
The overall objective of this WP is to consolidate the cross-cutting aspects of the project and thus link in an effective manner the different WPs. The Workpackage relates bordering processes to salient issues of scientific, social and political importance (e.g. migration, securitisation and border management, questions of European identity, intersectionality, etc.). With this aim, under WP 13 we scrutinize the research findings gathered during the fieldwork conducted in the course of different work packages, as well as compare different cases. WP 13 also indicates global as well as specifically European challenges that derive from changing conceptualisations and functions of state borders (e.g. challenges that border management imply for national policies in terms of immigration, welfare, labour laws, etc). The WP also aims to inform and raise awareness on issues that often are neglected in border research. A further major objective in this context is to generate and formulate policy relevant insights, in particular different policy options and their cost-benefit considerations. As Figure 3 indicates, there are many conceptual and empirical links between work packages which will be exploited to achieve synergy effects in fieldwork as well as in synthesising overall project results. WP 13 was one means of achieving this.
The Cross-Sectional Final Report (Deliverable D13.49) is the output of Research task 4 (RT 4) of the Work Package 13. The report reflects links established between various work packages (WPs) as per Research Task 1 (RT1), and is based on the reports on cross-cutting issues composed by individual partners according to a special template prepared by METU team. These individual reports were composed after the completion of fieldwork, and aimed to synthesize the findings. The report also incorporates Scenarios of Transnationalism and Flexible Bordering, as per Research Task (RT 5), which is also based on scenarios and policy orientations of individual members.
The report is structured according to the template which was prepared in the course of Research Task 2 (see appendix 1). The template, aimed to guide project participants in their efforts to consolidate and structure fieldwork findings in accordance to specific cross-cutting issues that were identified as relevant for the EUBORDERSCAPES research project, consisted of three sections. The first section focuses on conceptual issues; the second on the links between power relations and bordering process. These two sections cover most of the issues that were investigated in the course of the fieldwork. As many important geopolitical developments affecting bordering and conceptualizations of borders in the EU and beyond took place close to or after the completion of the fieldwork, a special section devoted to the impact of emerging problems on borders was added. Finally, a section on policy orientations and possible future scenarios developed in the course of RT 5 of the Work Package, allows to link and integrate findings of research with policy recommendations, both for individual case studies and for the whole project in general.
1. Brief overview of Workpackages and case studies
WP 3 (Post Soviet Borders and Conceptual Change): The main objective of WP 3 is explore the re-bordering of post-Soviet space by examining conceptual change in the rhetoric connected to definition, negotiation and conflict over the (re) formation of post-Soviet and post-Socialist states – and hence their borders. This WP will identify variation and change in the political language of negotiating and legitimizing Post-Soviet borders (based on ethnicity, religion, earlier treaties, international law etc). In addition, work will involve identifying conflicts and debates that have taken place over the just definition of the borders and what have been the main arguments in situations of disagreement. The WP will also include study of change and continuity in the use of the concept of “border” in Central and Eastern European states with the aim of recognizing historical layers in present day conceptualisations of the Eastern external borders of the EU. This workpackage is complimentary to WP 4 (Europeanisation), WP 5 (Post Colonial) and WP 6 (Neighbourhood) in terms of developing a conceptual history of borders from different political perspectives. Research Task 1b will be a shared task with WP 6.
The geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus includes Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Transnistria, Georgia, Kazakhstan.
WP 4 (Europeanisation: European Integration and Conceptual Change) involves a critical investigation of how official policies, political debates, media representations and more informal local “place-making” practices have contributed to process of European border-making and interpretations of national borders. The research focused on divergences and convergences between various modes of European border representations, such as political language, media, academic and cultural discourse. What do these convergences and divergences indicate about images of Europe in terms of openness and closedness (e.g. as reflections of transnational tendencies and tensions and anxieties about identity)?
This WP will complement WP 3 by focusing on shifts in political language with regard to processes of “Europeanisation” on the other side of what used to be known as the Iron Curtain. Of special interests is the process of European integration at different phases of enlargement.
Geographical Coverage and Case Studies: The level of investigation will be on specific national experiences:
1. Pre 2004 accession EU members (Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK)
2. “Post-socialist” member states: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland
3. New (former Yugoslav) states with future membership perspectives: Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina
WP 5 (Post-Colonial Bordering and Euro-African Borderscapes): This workpackage explores “post-colonial” strands of the conceptual evolution of borders, particularly as they apply to the Euro-African context. It relates the overall bordering perspective to the conceptual links between EU-internal, EU-external and non-European borders with special reference to the relational geographies between Europe and Africa. The “blurring” of metropolitan and former colonial borders takes concrete shape in growing transnational communities and hybrid urban spaces within Europe. However, dominant representations of Euro-African borders continue to exclude geographies of imagination, emotions, and belief outside traditional visible geopolitical realm. The objective here is to indicate how post-colonial bordering is impacting on local societies on the one hand and relations between the EU and North African states, e.g. within the context of EUROMED dialogue, on the other. It is important to note that the reference to post-Colonialism does not necessarily refer to specific European empires and their colonies but to a more general European-North African context
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Italian Cities: Bergamo and Genova; Spanish Cities: Sevilla, Barcelona
The Working package is complimentary to several other Work packages and includes several shared tasks. Thus, Research task 1b (EuroMed Dialogue, Migration and Border Discourses) is a SHARED TASK to be coordinated within WP 6 – Neighbourhood (RT 2d). The subproject explored how North African borders are referenced in the political language of official documents as well as in the more informal language of cultural and social initiatives that are involved in “EuroMediterranean” dialogue supported within the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). In addition, political issues regarding security, (irregular) migration as well as cultural and ethnic issues that impact on ways these borders are represented at the national level were included in analysis. These research objectives were pursued for the specific cases of Tunisia, Morocco and Israel, in light of issues that condition relations with the EU such as migration, security, social stability, human rights, etc.
WP 6: (Borders and Critical Geopolitics of Neighbourhood): the work package focused on shifts in the political language of borders in relations between the EU and its neighbours within the context of geopolitical shifts since 1990. This also involves the perspective of neighbouring states (Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) on relations with EU in terms of their changing geopolitical roles and border-related concerns. In addition, regional practices of defining frames for action in the implementation of EU policies of regional co-operation (e.g. in the guise of the European Neighbourhood Policy) will also be covered.
Two research tasks from this Workpackage are shared: RT 2b (Post-Soviet States and Shifting Borders of Neighbourhood) is a SHARED TASK with WP 3-Post Soviet borders; and RT 2d: EuroMed Dialogue, Migration and Border Discourses is a SHARED TASK with WP 5 – Post Colonial.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Morocco, Israel; of particular importance is the role of Turkey in the Black Sea region, as a country that simultaneously borders both Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood regions as well as remains an EU candidate.
WP 7 (Cross-Border Co-operation as Conflict Amelioration): investigates the conceptual change through the perspective of borders as resources in cross-border co-operation or as means of conflict-resolution: i.e. what opportunities can be identified for the positive transformation of contested border narratives in terms of cross-border co-operation, conflict resolution and intercultural dialogue? How can security-oriented policies (“securitisation”) be reconciled with a need for greater cross-border and transnational co-operation? This WP addresses issues of bordering and the framing of co-operation and conflict within inter-related contexts of power relations, governance, funding regimes, political will, culture and ethnicity.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: The spectrum of case studies to be investigated is broadly comparative. It includes areas where ethno-linguistic issues complicate cross-border relations (Estonia/Russia, Hungary/Ukraine), regions facing the legacy of competing historical memories (Cyprus, Turkey/Armenia) and areas where post-conflict situations are fragile and fraught with security issues, ethnic tensions and those where conflict remains acute and cross-border co-operation is weak and faces significant physical, political and cultural obstacles (Balkans, Cyprus). In addition, two contrasting examples from the Middle East, Israel/Palestine Authority and Israel/Jordan will expand debate on issues of cross-border governance and conflict resolution.
Case Studies: Ukraine/Russia, Ukraine/Moldova (Transnistria region), Turkey/Armenia, Hungary/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine Authority, Israel/Jordan, Polish/German, Polish/Ukrainian, Polish/Russian borders; Hungary/Serbia (Szeged (H)/Subotica (SRB), Hungary/Slovakia (Komarom (H)/Komarno (SK)
WP 8 (Rebordering State Spaces: Cities, Borders and Integration Processes): deals with economic and political integration processes associated with European integration and their impacts on the conceptual evolution of borders. This WP explores bordering as a “rebordering” of the EU in terms of economic networks, cross-border urban regions and “twin cities” on the EU’s internal and external borders. On the basis of conceptual, discursive and practical distinctions between functional spaces and institutional territories, we contrast the functional dimension of cross-border integration from its institutional counterpart, i.e. market-driven integration from policy-driven integration. This WP is linked conceptually to WP 4 (Europeanisation) and to WP 7 (Cross-Border Co-operation) in investigating if and how politics and policies of the EU have influenced functional interaction across national and external borders.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: three types of urban configurations have been investigated in WP 8:
- Cross-border metropolitan regions (Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, Greater Geneva region, Oresund (Copenhagen-Malmö))
- Urban border regions (Gdansk-Kaliningrad and Nicosia)
- Twin cities (Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice; (Görlitz-Zgorzelec (Germany-Poland), Sátoraljaújhely-Slovenske, Nove-Mesto (Hungary-Slovakia) and Barcs-Terezino-Polje/Virovitica (Hungary-Croatia))
WP 9 (Borders, Intersectionality and the Everyday): The central objective is to promote hitherto neglected areas of border research agendas that address lived, experienced and intersectional (e.g. gender, age, ethnicity) aspects of state borders. The bordering perspective will thus be developed in terms of discursive, practical and interpretational categories that reflect issues of citizenship, identity and transnational migration. This WP will also explore how borders affect groups with regard to gender, race, citizenship, socio-economic status and sexuality. The comparative perspective will encompass in-depth case studies that involve internal Schengen borders (UK/France) and the external EU border (Finland/Russia). In addition, an urban case study (London) of intersectionality and bordering will be carried out. This WP is linked conceptually to WP 5 (Post-colonial) and more directly to WP 10 (Cultural Production) where literary representations of borders by migrants will be studied.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus : Hungary, UK, Finland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and internal bordering in Budapest, London, Kent, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Kharkiv. Roma in urban case studies of Budapest, London, Kent and Helsinki.
WP 10 (Border-Crossing and Cultural Production): explores forms of cross-border “cultural production” within the overall perspective of bordering. This WP consolidates local perspectives in regard to how culturally produced representations have contributed to cross-border interpretations of state borders as well as challenge official meanings, symbolisms and functions attached to state borders. It analyses cultural and literary works in ways that frame national and European border issues (e.g. citizenship, cultural identities, inclusion, exclusion, cooperation across borders) and contextualise them in terms of historical and changing contemporary relationships. More specifically, this WP will demonstrate how artistic expression and the media address borders and border crossings (migrants, people living at borders, etc.) and their impact for everyday life in Europe (e.g cultural tensions, cultural hybridisation). This WP is most clearly linked to WP 9 (Intersectionality).
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Cyprus (Nicosia), Italy (Bergamo), Norway/Russian, France/Switzerland, Israel-Palestine; UK, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish immigrant literature
2. Main S/T Results
2.1 Understanding the shifting conceptions of borders
How does each team define border?
In all work packages and for all case studies the research teams have adopted a complex, multidimensional and dynamic concept of borders, encompassing not simply territorial delineation, but also political, social and cultural distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Furthermore, borders are conceptualized as social and political constructs, open to change. The concept of ‘borderscapes’ (reference) plays important role in the conceptualization of border. It expresses “the (geo)political and epistemic multidimensionality of the border, enabling a productive understanding of the processual, de-territorialized and dispersed nature of borders and their ensuing regimes in the era of globalization and transnational flows”. Adopting the borderscapes viewpoint allows to view borders genealogically and to historicize border-making and particularly border-migration nexus. This means rethinking Europe as an “ambiguous space” that reflects its colonial and post-colonial experiences, also understanding the ambiguity that marks the EU’s engagement with its various neighbourhoods.
In our case studies, the understanding of borders as lines of division and barriers, both physical and mental, prevailed. However, in some cases borders’ dual nature, as both dividing lines and areas of contact, was underlined. Understandably, the contact aspect of borders was more pronounced in more open and peaceful borders, where security concerns are not so strong.
Beyond these general understanding, some regional differences can be noted across various case studies. Thus, the bordering processes over the Mediterranean can be conceptualized as subject to ‘dual spatial logic of of cohesion and fracture’. Different approaches are adopted towards ‘desired’ and ‘undesired’ migrants. The neighborhood countries which agree to cooperate in policing and control of EU’s external borders and regulation of ‘undesired migrants’ are granted privileged access to the EU’s own debordered space. At the same time, the undesired migrants, including economic migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa as well as the refugee flows from the Middle East face severe restrictions in their attempts to reach Europe. Morocco, which was granted ‘Advanced status’ in relations with EU in 2008, is a paradigmatic case in point, receiving funding and privileges in exchange for assistance in border control. A similar agreement is now being negotiated with Turkey, in order to control forced migration from the Middle East.
In the post-Soviet cases, the divisive aspects of borders are emphasized and borders are perceived more as issue of state-building than of cultural divisions. In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Ukraine the unjust and arbitrary nature of the current borders, which dates back to early Soviet border-making is emphasized. This contributes to the perception of borders as fundamentally changeable. There is also differentiation among various borders: thus, some borders, such as border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, are completely sealed off, both politically and socially; other borders are seen as more friendly, open, and permeable. In Russia, there is a differentiation between ‘good’ borders (those with ethnically and culturally close Slavic states) and ‘bad’ borders with South Caucasus and Central Asian states, which are perceived as sources of violence, conflict, and migration.
Within the EU, the top-down cross-border cooperation projects have been effective to a greater or lesser extent in changing perceptions of borders from separation lines to areas of contact and exchange. This impact is especially visible between Central and Eastern European states such as Poland or Hungary on the one hand and ‘old’ EU members on the other. The sharp divisions of the Cold War have been replaced by more open, interactive views on borders.
To summarize, borders can be conceptualized along two dimensions: dynamic (de-bordering and re-bordering) and structural, understood in the sense of Giddens’ structuration (enabling and constraining). These dimensions produce four different modalities of bordering process: threat, obstacle, resource and protection
Table 1 - The significance of the border: a conceptual framework derived from structuration theory
Effects over agency
Border dynamics/structure Constraining Enabling
De-bordering Threat Resource
Re-bordering Obstacle Protection
Source: Sohn, 2014.
How are borders made?
In all Work packages and in all case studies, we adopted the view of borders as social and political constructs which are open to change. The borders can be made through various means, including institutional practices, state-led policies at the national and local level, daily interaction, construction of various narratives, discourses and imaginaries through media and art. Yet, the processes involved in making of specific borders vary greatly from case to case: top-down and bottom-up border-making can be complementary, or the two processes can be at odds with each other. Important regional differences can be noted. Thus, within the EU, there is a top-down institutional process of debordering, aiming at removing of borders. However, this top-down policies have resulted in different outcomes in different contexts and for different groups of people. Thus, while business people and civil society generally welcome such debordering policies, they are often resisted on the ground by ordinary citizens, as is the case, for example, on the German side of the German-Polish border. Many citizens remain attached to their national identities and feel that these identities are threatened by the EU debordering. In the Mediterranean, the process of externalization of European border and securitization are most prominent. With externalization, the EU seeks cooperation of neighborhood countries, most notably Morocco, and more recently Turkey, in providing security for EU’s external borders. In former Soviet Union, state plays the leading role in border-making; although in some cases, as in Eastern Ukraine until the recent crisis, everyday practices of interaction and cooperation challenged the formal borders.
Which actors are involved in border-making processes?
There are various levels of actors involved in the border-making processes. These can be conceptualized as institutional vs interpersonal levels, or hierarchically, involving supranational, national, and local levels. The supranational level is represented most obviously by the EU, with its policies of de-bordering within the Union, cross-border cooperation initiatives both within the EU and with the neighbourhood, and cooperation with neighbourhood countries in securitizing EU’s external borders. Furthermore, several types of actors can be identified, including authorities, civil society organizations, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens. These actors can also operate on different levels, including for example national and local authorities, and local vs national and international civil society organizations. The interests and practices of different actors of the border-making process can sometimes complement or be at odds with each other. Thus, the EU projects often support civil society organizations who are willing to engage in cross-border cooperation. In Swiss-French case, while both the political and business elites have very positive views about open border, some groups of population and some populist movements have been against this. In Russian exclave Kaliningrad region, local authorities, business people, and population alike support softening and opening of the border with Poland, while federal authorities in Moscow are more concerned with issues of state and border security.
How does each team understand the changes in the conceptions of borders socially, politically, culturally and a reflections of territoriality?
The changes in the conceptions of borders can be influenced by a wide variety of actors (see above) and various processes. Within the EU the most important changes were initiated by EU institutions and policies, namely, by the institutional debordering and programs aimed at promoting cross-border communication. But the external borders of the EU are more susceptible to geopolitical processes and changes, for example, the Eastern border of the EU, between Poland and Ukraine/Russia has been affected by the geopolitical changes and the crisis in the Ukraine. Along the Southern borders, in the Mediterranean, our research teams have noted struggles that consist of strategies of adaptation, contestation and resistance that challenge the externalization and the top-down geopolitical control of EU’s external borders, often perceived through the metaphor of ‘Fortress Europe’. Cultural production plays an important role in this process of contestation and challenge of the top-down narratives and policies, such as for example the LampedusaFestival. The festival has become a counter-hegemonic borderscape in which migrants engage in performance and representation of their in-between identities which challenge notions of nation-state and citizenship.
In the post-Soviet states the impact of the dissolution of Soviet Union still exerts influence on the understanding of borders. The conceptions of borders are undergoing continuing change in the region: thus, in Ukraine there is a shift from more state-centered (borders between states) to more nation-centered (borders between nations) perspectives. In the Caucasus there is a process of re-orientation and differentiation amongvarious borders: thus, borders with neighbours who used to be part of the Soviet Union have become stronger and even closed (between Azerbaijan and Armenia); while former Soviet external borders have become more permeable (border with Iran for both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and border with Turkey for Azerbaijan) .
2.2. Power relations with regard to borders
In this section we explore the cross-cutting issues in the impact of power relations upon borders. The first question deals with existing and possibly entrenched political problems, focusing particularly on the intersection of geographical, political and cultural borders. This question focuses on the issues that were addressed in the course of fieldwork conducted in our case studies. The second question addresses emerging problems which began to emerge towards the end or after completion of our fieldwork, and thus could not be fully covered during our research. Yet, the research teams have tried to follow the latest developments and to conceptualize them in the context of fieldwork findings.
How do political problems affect borders and conceptions of borders in terms of:
a. Sovereignty
b. Ethnic and national claims
c. Self determination and political autonomy
d. Self realisation and contingencies of social autonomy
The issues of sovereignty carry different weight in different regions. In Western Europe, for example, fears of loss of sovereignty to the EU do not play significant role in public discourses. However, in South-Eastern Europe, the problems of sovereignty are more acute, and the EU is blamed for failing to guarantee national sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is especially noticeable in the discourses emerging during the recent refugee and immigration crisis. The subsequent erection of fences against immigration from the (non-EU) Balkans and Middle East regions was commented in most national media as an act of “re-establishing sovereignty and the national power to decide”. In another Eastern European case, in Poland, the annexation of Crimea by Russia has raised concerns about security and national sovereignty. In the Southern neighborhood the issues of sovereignty are perceived in the context of de-colonization, and are strongly debated in the cases of Gibraltar and Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, whose belonging to Spain is disputed by Morocco. Rather paradoxically, despite having territorial claims against Spain, Morocco nevertheless cooperates in controlling the EU’s border in these enclaves.
The issues of state sovereignty are more acute in the former Soviet states. Russia under the Presidency of Vladimir Putin has begun to pursue a policy of multi-level and multi-speed reintegration of post-Soviet space, with most advanced form of such reintegration represented by the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Other initiatives included attempts to construct single energy space, including also Turkmenistan and Ukraine. However, what was seen in Russia as mutually beneficial forms of integration has often been perceived by the leaders of post-Soviet countries as constraints on their sovereignty, in both economic and political sense.
In the case of Israel – Palestine, political problems lie at the very heart of border conceptions. They affect notions of sovereignty because of conditions of occupation in which one side has both sovereignty and control, while the other lacks both. The construction of borders, both physical and perceptual based on fear of the other, strengthens notions of self determination and political autonomy for BOTH sides, leading to a desire for the construction of borders based on bilateral agreement rather than the current situation of imposed borders by the stronger side.
The issues of ethnic and national claims are dominate border discourses as well as practices in the post-Soviet space. There is a number of ethno-political conflicts, dating to the late Soviet period, including conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, conflict over Transnistria in Moldova, conflicts over South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and most recently the crisis over Crimea and Eastern parts of Ukraine. All of these conflicts have in common incongruity between formal borders and cultural and ethnic borders, which can be dated back to the Stalin’s administrative divisions as well as imperial history of Russian, Habsbrug and Ottoman empires.
But the territorial claims can also be found beyond post-Soviet space. Thus, Armenia has territorial claims towards Turkey; the disputes over Gibraltar and Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Mellilla are other examples. Yet, within the EU, internal de-bordering has mostly had positive effect on such ethnic and national claims. In Gibraltar, the EU promoted cooperation and interaction with Spain. In Central and Eastern Europe the debates about national minority rights have also become more moderate, for example, in the cases of Hungarian minority in Romania and Serbia. Overall, within the EU, geopolitical issues continue to play bigger role than ethnicity.
In the Southern Mediterranean, the issue of ethnicity has less to do with national claims and more with cultural, and especially religious divides. The associations between European/Christian versus non-European (Middle Eastern or African/Muslim) are rather strong across the southern EU borders, from Morocco to Turkey. In Turkey, for example, it is widely believed that the EU is a “Christian club” which would never accept Turkey as its part.
c. Self determination and political autonomy
Ethnic and national claims are also closely connected to the issues of self-determination and political autonomy. For example, in all of the post-Soviet conflicts cited above the ethnic and national claims have self-determination, ultimately in the form of independent statehood, as their aim. However, there are also some issues pertaining to political autonomy that are not directly connected to ethnicity. The case in point is Russian exclave Kaliningrad region, which has no autonomy and thus is thoroughly dependent on the decision-making in the federal center in Moscow. This is an important constraint on the region’s economic cooperation with the EU, and more specifically with Poland, with whom it shares a land border. The dependence on federal authorities often results in diversion of interests of local and federal authorities. In Eastern Europe, there are some concerns about loss of political autonomy to the EU. However, expectations of funding usually overrode these concerns.
3. How emerging problems affect borders and conceptions of borders with regard to:
- The Refugee Situation
- Geo-strategic Problems (e.g. current crisis between Russia and Turkey)
- Radicalism and violence
The refugee crisis that unfolded in Europe last year has begun after the completion of the fieldwork for most of the Workpackages, and therefore no detailed findings can be presented. However, monitoring of media and observations in the countries of case studies research suggest a general tendency towards fortification and securitization of the borders. There is a strong tendency in to medialize “the refugee crisis” which spectacularizes and simplifies narratives of migration, and these narratives dominate the public sphere. Migration from Middle East is often perceived not as refugee crisis, but also as a potential source of criminality and especially terrorism for Europe. While these tendencies are strongest in the countries closest to the external borders of the EU, particularly Mediterranean and South-East Europe, there are also calls for fortification of internal EU borders, thus challenging the achievements of debordering process. This has to do less with the migration flows themselves, but more with the perceived unfairness of the proposed quota system, which is especially opposed in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. In these countries the refugee crisis and the failure of the EU to deal with it have given rise to Euroscepticism and critique of liberalism and multi-culturalism.
In the Mediterranean, where the issues of refugees and more generally forced migration have been significant for a longer period of time, there is a more complex response. The inadequacy of EU’s response to migration from Meditteranean has long been observed in the region. The recent crisis on the one hand resulted in the tendency towards fortification and securitization of borders; however, because of the perils of the sea-crossing which results in many tragedies and loss of life, the humanitarian narrative here is stronger. Thus, Mediterranean becomes the space where humanitarian and securitarian discourses collide, as migrant (i.e. A person in need for humanitarian action) meets a smuggler (i.e. a criminal). In this aspect, the cooperation of the EU with its neighbors in controlling the borders is becoming even more important. The mechanism of joint control was previously already tested, with some success, in the case of Morocco, where Morocco has received privileged access to the EU and softening of the border regime, as well as financial assistance, in return for its cooperation in readmission of migrants. The current agreement on Middle Eastern migrants between the EU operates according to a similar logic; however, there is strong opposition within EU towards the opening of borders with Turkey
The rise of radicalism and violence on the borders is also related to the refugee crisis, and more generally, to perceptions of migration. This is a widely used narrative, that can be found, for example, in the West bank, where Israel justifies building of a wall with the threat of terrorism and violence emanating from Palestine. Similar logic has been employed by Russia, which had closed its borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia due to fears of terrorist threat. However, radicalism and violence also rise on the other side of the borders. Currently in Europe in addition to fears of trafficking of goods and people, and of the terrorist threat spreading into Europe with the flow of refugees, there has also been radicalization of right-wing groups in Europe itself, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Western Europe.
Among the emerging geostrategic problems that affect borders the most important issue is the so-called Ukrainian crisis, following the annexation of Crimea and unfolding of violent conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The strongest impact has been on the Russian Ukrainian border, outside of the areas of military conflict. There is considerable strengthening of border controls from the Ukrainian side, restrictions on crossing the border by Russian men, and these actions are in contrast with the previous practices of open border that used to be crossed on foot. The perceptions of this process of fortification in Ukraine depend on the geo-political orientations: thus, pro-Russian citizens do not perceive the border as a source of threat, while pro-Ukrainian support the fortification. The crisis has also affected border with Poland: there is decreased border traffic between Poland and Russia, while at the same time the traffic between Poland and Ukraine increased. Furthermore, the perception of threat coming from Russia gave rise to calls to abolish visa-free regime with Russia. Similar concerns with security were expressed in Finland, where the Ukrainian crisis was interpreted as a collapse of multi-polar world, and the Finnish-Russian border became seen not simply as EU’s external border, but as a civilizational boundary between the West and Russia.
Further away from Russia’s borders, in Bulgaria, the Ukrainian crisis led to a separation of discourses into pro-Russia and pro-EU strands, and a raising awareness of Bulgaria’s importance in the new geopolitical context. In Germany, the response has been more mixed, and changed considerably over time. In the beginning, it was perceived as an outcome of intervention of multitude of players, including US and EU, and only after unfolding of conflict in Donetsk the discourses shifted towards the confrontation between ‘the West’ and Putin. These interpretations pointed to a new perception of Ukraine’s border as and external border of the EU, and thus are a case of ‘rebordering from a distance’.
The crisis also had an indirect impact on borders in post-Soviet space. Thus, following the Ukrainian crisis Armenia and Georgia have found themselves separated by new division line, as Armenia joined Eurasian Economic Union, and Georgia reaffirmed its integration with the EU. This has potential of complicating relations between the two neighbouring countries
4. How are borders perceived and constructed through:
- Daily experiences
- Stories (e.g. narrative-building with regards to everyday bordering in terms of biographies, literature, art)
-Interpretations of crisis situations (e.g. Ukraine, refugee crisis, Austerity and Euro crisis)
Different patterns of daily practices of cross border interaction can be noted in different regions: Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, external borders of the EU, and post-Soviet borders. In Western Europe, which constitutes debordered core area, open borders are routinized and seen as 'business as usual'. However, considerable differences can continue to exist between everyday practices and official discourses. Thus, in Geneva and Lille local authorities have fully embraced EU debordering, while ignoring anti-EU sentiments on the ground. In the case of UK-Ireland border, there is an 'active reconceptualization of a national border as an EU border'. Both national and local media downplay the role of the EU and interpret the developments as part of the UK-Ireland peace process or unification of Ireland, thus “re-nationalising” the European impact on the border".
One common observation from a variety of case studies is that formal debordering, i.e. opening of borders, implementation of visa-free regimes, and promoting of cross-border cooperation, does not necessarily lead to removal of social borders or mental barriers. Language differences play important role in perpetuating these mental barriers. This has been observed in cases as different as German-Polish and Polish-Russian border and the metropolitan area of Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai. The mental barriers are deconstructed only in relatively small sectors of population, i.e. among bilingual young professionals.
In the case of more conflictual and closed borders, one of the interesting findings, reflected in the film produced for WP10, has been the lack of understanding of similarity between border practices and border narratives on different sides of the border. The images of threat, fear, dirt exist on both sides of the border, and in fact mirror each other. This is also true for social borders in ethnic/migrant enclaves that exist in urban and metropolitan areas.
Furthermore, the cross-border interactions are often asymmetrical. Thus, while both Polish and Russian citizens frequently cross border in Kaliningrad region, Russians do so much more frequently, and the main goal for them is shopping for all kinds of consumer goods, which are cheaper on the Polish side of the border. Polish citizens cross the border to buy gasoline, which is cheaper in Russia. The interaction across Polish-Ukrainian border is similarly asymmetrical, with Ukrainians crossing mostly for reasons of work and study, while Polish visit Ukraine for short ‘sentimental vacations’. Similar process is taking place in German-Polish border, which is crossed much more frequently by the Poles.
Everyday experiences of borders vary greatly according to various groups of population. Thus, younger people in Central and Eastern Europe are more active in cross-border cooperation and interaction; the mental barrier remains stronger for older people. Similar dynamic is observed in Italian-Tunisian border, where second generation of Tunisian migrants have multiple and hybrid Arab/Italian identities. Businessmen in all our case studies have been active in exploiting the economic opportunities presented by the border. On the other hand, civil society is most active where it is also supported by the EU or local authorities. In the absence of such support, cross-border activities can fade away, as was the case with Russian-Ukrainian border region Slobozhanschina.
In terms of narrative construction, the opening of the borders and increased interaction does lead to more multi-vocal perspective and can help to change perception of borders from division lines into areas of contact. However, care must be taken not to silence those voices that oppose debordering. This is especially relevant in the core debordered area of Western Europe, where debordering has become a dominant discourse. Yet, populations often resist that and emphasize the significance of national belonging, even as they engage in cross-border activities.
An important aspect of cross-border interaction has been the communication via various technological means such as Skype, without physically crossing of border. While this form of interaction is rarely considered in border studies, our research, especially in the Polish-Ukrainian case, has demonstrated that technology can be a powerful tool in reducing the separating effects of borders. For Ukrainian students in Poland such communication, which can be very frequent and regular, has been crucial in retaining contacts with their families.
Daily experiences of border are also affected by the interpretation of crisis situations. The constraints imposed on interaction across Ukrainian-Russian border and the decrease in traffic across Russian-Polish border are some of the examples. In the Mediterranean, Ukrainian crisis had little impact; however, the events of the Arab spring affected border interaction considerably, as the capacity of Libya and Tunisia in controlling their borders was undermined. At the level of discourses and narratives, they play an important role in medializing crisis situation, i.e. Refugee problems. Cultural production such as literary works, autobiographies, art, can both contribute to the simplified hegemonic media discourses or challenge it by creating alternative, counter-hegemonic narratives and imaginaries.
5. Linkages between Traditional and Post-Traditional Borders
How does your WP/case study reflect on the linkages between traditional (geopolitics) and post-traditional (everyday practices) borders and bordering? Please consider the themes below where relevant:
a. Gender
b. Migration
c. Identity Politics
d. Conflict Amelioration
e. Cross Border Cooperation
While the original question suggested binary opposition between traditional (geopolitical) and post-traditional (everyday practices) understandings of borders, our research suggests mutual infiltration of everyday practices with geopolitical imaginaries and hierarchical practices of control. Therefore it is more relevant to speak not of the continuum between the two poles, but rather of the plurivocality of experiences of the border. The concept of borderscapes that we employ is the main conceptual tool that links traditional and post-traditional notions of borders.
A. Gender/Age
Gender can play an important role in structuring experiences of borders. This is especially the case in migration. Thus, in Italian-Tunisian border, where temporary seasonal migration of fishing workers from Tunisia was replaced by more permanent immigration following the restrictions on migration introduced with Martelli law of 1990. While season migrants were generally male, when the migration became more permanent they had brought with them their families.
In some cases, the constructed symbolic borders between femininities and masculinities can intersect with cultural borders and with geopolitical borders. This becomes especially visible in narratives of immigrant LGBT resistance to established norms in host and diasporic communities and in narratives of inter-generational conflict focusing on patriarchal honour cultures, arranged marriages, FGM or cross-cultural families. From the analysis of men’s and women’s narratives of migration we can conclude that masculinity and femininity generate different experiences of the border, and often the role of family and relationality may be more easily addressed in women-authored narratives of border and crossing. The trope of home, however, is central to migrant narratives more generally and has a particular role in the making of diasporic identity and migrant subjectivity – as our analysis of the role of food in autobiographical writing shows it is a link with the past and serves as a means to reconstruct and maintain ethnic identity.
Another important dimension that emerged from our fieldwork was the role of age in the experience border. This is especially true in the Central and Eastern Europe and in former Soviet Union, where the legacies of Cold War borders are felt more strongly by the older generation. Thus, in German-Polish border, young people are much more active in cross-border interaction, and they also feel more ‘European’. Similar dynamic is observed along Poland’s border with Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, within former Soviet Union, older generation has particularly difficult time with accepting the strengthening of what used to be fully open administrative borders between Soviet republics. Although the experiences of such closures are different, from practically open, until recently, border between Russia and Ukraine to closed border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, many older people are nostalgic about free travel within Soviet Union. In Mediterranean border, intergenerational differences play important role in strategies of adaptation as well as in identity construction. Unlike the generation of their parents, second generation Tunisian migrants in Sicily has developed multiple identities and belonging to both Italian and Tunisian cultures.
B. Migration
One area where the tension between traditional and post-traditional borders is most obvious is migration. The experiences of migration are extremely varied in different cases. In Polish-German border, there has been a change from long-term emigration (from Poland to Germany) to a more temporary, short term travel for work, business, leisure. On the Polish-Ukrainian border the trend is opposite: from short term travel towards long-term migration for work or study. Ukrainians are much more active in this migration flow than the Poles. Another aspect of the tension between geopolitics and everyday practices is the petty trade in military gear on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Thus, a peaceful border is temporarily transformed into an ‘informally militarized zone’. On the other hand, there are also changes in migration between Russia and Poland. While overall traffic has decreased following the geopolitical changes of the crisis in Ukraine, travel for shopping still continues. At the same time, there is also a trend for students from Kaliningrad to study in Poland. Studying in Poland is often preferred to local university in Kaliningrad, while at the same time it is cheaper than studying in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
In the Mediterranean, the practices of securitization and fortification reflect the continuing importance of traditional, geopolitical understanding of borders. At the same time, the practices of control and survaillance from a distance and outsourcing of border control functions to North African states suggests shifts in traditional forms of border control.
C. Identity politics
In CEE region, the cosmopolitan cross border or regional identities hardly ever appeared. Political attempts to implement "Europeanized" identities usually meet with local resistance, and local identities are shaped by national sense of belonging. The only exception is young cultural and functional elites in G-P border, who stress cross-border cooperation and bi-lingual education, and thus are able to create few local ‘paradoxical enclaves of cosmopolitanism". However, the existence of ethnic kinship or cultural similarity in the border regions certainly helps to soften borders and make them more permeable. This, for example is the case in Polish-Ukrainian border. New immigrants living on the border stress their ‘in-betweenness” in relation to the cultures in which they are immersed, which can be considered a form of border identity.
In post-Soviet space, Russia has stressed the importance of ‘compatriots’ and ‘Russian speaking’ people, who continue to live in the countries of former Soviet Union. This group plays important role in the construction of the concept of ‘Russian world’ (Russkii Mir), an association of all those who feel connected to Russian culture regardless of their citizenship. The repercussions of this identity are far-reaching, as the concept of Russkii Mir is also a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy. The importance of this identity can be further observed in the case of Eastern Ukraine, and Transnistria where pro-Russian orientations continue to shape perceptions of borders, even in the context of military conflict.
D. Conflict amelioration
With regards to conflict amelioration, the EU’s role on Ireland and UK border and in Gibraltar suggests positive impact of increase in daily interaction on the peace process. In Ireland, the opening of the EU border has been interpreted as a part of UK-Ireland peace process. Consequently, there are some expectations that cross-border interaction and the EU can have positive impact on conflicts in former Soviet Union, in particular, Transnistria and Karabakh. However, such expectations have so far not materialized. Even in the case of the most open of the post-Soviet conflict borders, in Transnistria, the regular cross-border interaction has not led to any progress in the resolution of political conflict.
E. Cross-border cooperation
Top-down Europeanization and cross-border cooperation initiatives have had some impact, although long-term effect of such policies in the absence of EU funding remains questionable. In Central and Eastern Europe, these top-down policies were partially resisted by both elites, who sought to protect their privileges, and populations, who opposed the encroachment on their understanding of ethnicity and nationalism. In this region the top-down debordering quickly turned into Euroscepticism and short-term re-bordering with the onset of refugee and Ukrainian crises. In some cases, such as Russian-Ukrainian Slobozhanschina Euroregion as well as cross-border cooperation projects in the Russian-Finnish border, the withdrawal of funding at the end of the programmes have significantly undermined cooperation activities. However, in Kaliningrad region, the cooperation continues with the involvement of local authorities, business people and populations, without significant support from the EU.
In the core debordered area in the Western Europe, despite well developed interaction, the attitudes towards open borders remain ambivalent. In metropolitan border areas, such as Greater Geneva and Lille-Kortjik-Tournai, despite high level of functional integration that is supported by political and business elites, populist movements call for rebordering.
Proximity to border can also have an effect on cultural activities. Cross-border cooperation initiatives often involve various cultural events, festivals, fairs, etc. These activities usually take place at more peaceful borders, and can give rise to long-term partnership and collaboration. This, for example, has been the case in the contemporary art scene in north-west Russia. However, border art projects are also highly vulnerable to the geopolitical changes. Thus, in the Russian case, with the strengthening of state control, the funding from Scandinavian countries, which used to sustain this collaboration, has become unwelcome, and the artists who were engaged in this collaboration have been marginalized as ‘foreign agents’. A new border between ‘us’ and ‘them’ has been drawn.
6. Policy Options and Scenarios
Considering the situation and changes observed in your WP/Case Study how do you see the future developments and what could be the policy option for the countries involved and EU?
In considering future developments and possible policy responses it is important to distinguish between various roles that the EU plays in different borderscapes, as well as different border context. The first line of distinction is between internal and external borders. Within the EU borders, the EU has played a role of “mastermind of integration”, and it has been relatively successful. However as reflected above, these successes have not been uniform and there are important differences between the ‘core debordered area’ of Western Europe and the borders with/between newer EU members in Central and Eastern Europe. EU’s top-down policies and initiatives were able to engineer debordering and promote interaction across national borders, not least by mobilizing local civil society. In some cases, such as for example German-Polish border, the imaginaries of top-down EU domination of the border interaction have been replaced by imaginaries of autonomy and self-reliance. At the same time, EU should take more seriously the feelings of those who resist debordering and emphasize their national, as opposed to European, belonging. Silencing of these alternative discourses and neglect of such feeling has potential of destabilizing the process of debordering and can lead to a rise of xenophobic discourses and movements, even in rather prosperous and well integrated areas such as Greater Geneva. "Whatever the level of de-bordering and related functional integration, national borders remain strong markers of identity and difference, either in a virtual or actual sense. The instrumental approaches to cross-border cooperation (e.g. planning of transportation infrastructures, enhancing labour market integration, resolving negative externalities, etc.) that dominate current initiatives do not address the resurgence of national and protective re-bordering claims and are therefore not sufficient in order to promote a sustained cross-border integration. Confronted with a relative deterritorialization, there is a need to recode the state border as an object of recognition able to promote a shared sense of place and belonging"
In the external borders, EU’s policies have been far less successful. In many cases, such as in the Mediterranean, EU’s response to migration across the sea has been regularly described as ‘inadequate’. The policy of control and surveillance from a distance and outsourcing of policing of EU’s borders to neighboring countries such as Morocco and Turkey has failed to resolve the problems of migration. In the Mediterranean therefore there is a need, even an urgency, for a more committed EU, which would not only promote the Eurocentric vision but would become more attentive to the local contexts and local problems. Such a policy shift would also require “broadening the spectrum of actors involved"; "grasping the dialogic nature of bordering processes and imaginaries, as well as the tension between institutional formal modes of political agency and social non-formal modes of agency". The currently proposed mechanism of immigration quotas is also inadequate for resolving the refugee crisis. The EU needs to acknowledge that the current arrangement is asymmetric and puts unjustly heavy burden on peripheral states; "There is need for a balanced concept that redistributes costs, and puts security and the humanitarian aspects of migration into a balanced perspective. "
EU’s geopolitical involvement in Eastern neighbourhood, particularly in Ukraine, has been also a controversial issue with greatly differentiated responses across the EU and in the post-Soviet space. The possible scenarios as well as policy recommendations that emerge from the differently positioned actors in this regard are inevitably complex and sometimes contradictory. Thus, in South-East Europe this involvement as led to rising Euroscepticism, and thus threatens still fragile process of European integration. Along the Eastern borders of the EU fears of getting involved in an international conflict and concerns for the security of national borders has been growing, and in our fieldwork was felt particularly strongly in Poland. The considerations for the stability of the European integration project Eastern Europe in the context of an ongoing military conflict without a solution in a foreseeable future suggest the need “to reduce geopolitical activities in the region as much as possible”.
However, things look very different from the other side of the EU border. Particularly, in Ukraine, which has been the site of the military conflict as well as is at the core of EU/Russia’s tense relations, greater engagement of the EU is sought and recommended. The trajectory of Ukraine’s increasing integration with the EU, most recently through an Association Agreement, suggests a need for a mor comprehensive EU policy towards this country. In particular, it is noted that EU’s relations with its Eastern Neighbourhood should be more differentiated and involve close interaction between those countries that have moved further in the process of association with the EU, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. However, in the current geopolitical context such integration trajectory leads to increasing tensions with Russia, which in turn lead to rising security concerns in the neighborhood. Ukraine seeks EU’s greater commitment to its own security; with particular regards to the borders this commitment is envisioned as EU’s assistance, technical and financial, in strengthening Ukraine’s borders with its neighbors.
At the same time, EU has important, and yet not fully tapped potential in conflict resolution. The success of EU’s engagement in Northern Ireland and in Gibraltar, which helped to increase interaction and cooperation of conflicting sides serves as a good example for other conflicts in the region. From Palestine to Transnistria to Nagorno-Karabakh EU is perceived as an honest broker and its mediation in the conflicts there is perceived as having potentially positive impacts. However, at least in the post-Soviet space, such involvement would also require collaboration with Russia, which is difficult to achieve in the current context.
Finally, one area where EU’s involvement has been highly effective is support of civil society, both within the EU and in the neighborhood. Although the impacts of this support may be less obvious and less immediate, they can have significant long-term effects in a variety of contexts, from conflict amelioration to cultural production. This policy recommendation is also related to the call for a more committed EU above and the engaging of wider range of actors.
In the sphere of cultural production, the EU can (1) facilitate the role of cultural production in “despectacularizing” and “dereducing” narratives of border crises presented in the media by journalists and politicians. ‘Slow media’, such as literature and film, can bring more wide-ranging narratives into public debate, reducing the impact of simplified media discourses. (2) The EU can also facilitate creative and ethical ways of making individual experiences of border-crossing accessible in the public sphere. The range of such experiences should not be limited only to border-crossers, but should include wider range of actors, such as bureaucrats, police and local residents. Cultural production can suggest strategies for an ethics of representation (avoiding spectacle, victimization & surveillance) when dealing with border-crossings. Ethical considerations include facilitating sharing of the sensible without risk to actants (3) It is also important to Explore through further research the memory and utopia dimension of migrant border-crossing, including collective and individual memories of migration and of countries of origin.
Potential Impact:
The four years of EUBORDERSCAPES have been extremely productive and the consortium has succeeded in maximizing the overall social and scientific impact of the project. Not only in terms of academic output, documented in four conferences, numerous articles, several special issues and book publications, but also in terms of reaching out to concerned stakeholders and activists. In addition, EUBORDERSCAPES has emphasised the cultural, aesthetic and literary negotiation of borders. Several art exhibitions and events as well as four finely crafted films give evidence of the complexity of the borderscape as imaginary, historical memory, everyday lived space and narrative. EUBORDERSCAPES reflects very different ways in which political and social borders condition our understandings of Europe. Accordingly, policy relevant aspects of the project will involve different levels of political and economic agency and a variety of social spheres. Furthermore, in terms of impact, policy relevant issues developed within the project have centred on issues such as the contradictions between security concerns, European values of tolerance and respect for cultural difference and tendencies towards national “consolidation”. The implications of borders and “bordering processes” understood in political and socio-cultural terms will have a direct bearing on the development of a greater sense of European citizenship and participation. Based on the issues targeted in WP 13 (Cross-Sectional Analysis and Policy Considerations), the consortium has formulated specific messages that enhance the overall societal impact of the project:
1. Issues related to the EU’s internal bordering (for example, labour migration, illegal immigration, asylum issues, border management, the Schengen visa rules and border regime) that represent a challenge to deeper European integration and the EU’s future social and economic development.
2. Issues related to European and national integration policies and the challenges of multiculturalism.
3. Issues related to the impacts of the European Union on its regional neighbours. This includes the direct impacts of border management policies as well as other broader aspects of border-related conditionality that the EU is applying as part of its regional co-operation policies.
With a specific regard to policy impact EUBORDERSCAPES has generated discussion on many political, social and cultural issues related to borders with a bearing on the formulation of policy. While our policy insights cannot be directly translated into policy action, we believe that they can inform stakeholders and the wider policy community, including civil society actors, who deal with very immediate concerns that relate to migration, mobility, cultural openness and diversity within Europe. In concluding, we suggest three major ways in which the complexity of border-related issues can be made more understandable and the everyday impacts of borders more transparent.
1. Bridge the gap between border knowledge and practice
By understanding bordering as an everyday process of interaction between different groups and social needs we argue that it would be possible to foster innovative policies capable of promoting a more comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges that open borders signify. The ways in which we theorize borders have a very real implication for the borders we practice. Today’s methodological advances point out the need to overcome oppositions between narratives and theories, between theories and practices, by highlighting, instead, how it is in their interplay that a new “emotional” knowledge could be produced.
2. Broaden the spectrum of actors involved in border policy
Border policy should pay much attention to the specific contextual and historical conditions of contemporary borderlands, thereby advancing a perspective which gives voice to a multiplicity of individual and group stances on contemporary borders. This entails identities, perceptions, beliefs, and emotions. We need to inquire about people’s practices and experiences of dealing with the border interactions, both political and territorial, as well as symbolic and cultural. At the same time, this grounded diversity of perspectives and practices should be related back to the broader economic, political and geopolitical shifts defining contemporary flowing borders, in order to better understand the dialogue between the various scales of action through which borderscapes are made and experienced.
We should involve different and sometimes new actors who can constitute nodes of cooperation networks across borders, to exploit opportunities for new forms of interaction and thus improve dialogue. A bottom-up perspective (“policy-from-below”) should be adopted in order to avoid reproducing a Eurocentric vision and simply projecting and replying European values. We also need to develop tools for improving communication and cooperation among different actors, to strengthen existing relations and to add new actors previously not included.
3. Develop a relational approach to borders in border policy
A relational perspective would take into account complementary perspectives considering the interaction between political visions and everyday socio-cultural practices as well as social representations and artistic imaginaries. This would help to advance border policy based on complementary perspectives capable of grasping the dialogic nature of bordering processes and imaginaries, as well as the tension between institutional formal modes of political agency and social non-formal modes of agency that co-constitute contemporary borderscapes.
Finally, we need to shape and foster innovative border policies that engage and critically address the multilevel complexity of borders – from the geopolitical level to the level of social practices and cultural productions. This would represent a significant shift in border policy perspective that might offer a real opportunity to fully capture the many implications that the constantly changing historical, political, and social contemporary world’s contexts imply at different scales.
Impact: developing the borderscapes concept
The work of the EUBORDERSCAPES consortium suggests that more traditional concepts of border-making can be expanded to encompass the social imaginaries; borderscapes are social/political panoramas that emerge around border contexts and that connect the realm of high politics with that of communities and individuals who are affected by and negotiate the EU’s Mediterranean borders. As an example of the scientific impact of EUBORDERSCAPES we suggest developing the borderscape concept as a way of thinking about the border and bordering processes not only on the border, but also beyond the line of the border, beyond the border as a place, beyond the landscape through which the border runs, and beyond borderlands with their territorial contiguities to the border.1 The borderscape functions along the lines of Appadurai’s ethnoscapes, technoscapes, mediascapes, etc. These terms help deal with the “global cultural flow[s]” and the “imagined worlds” in which people live.2 As such the borderscape is a flexible concept, following interweaving flows and connections, and an inclusive concept not necessarily limited by any clear spatial border. Rajaram and Grundy-Warr privilege the concept of the borderscape as indicating “the complexity and vitality of, and at, the border”, emphasising its status as a landscape of resistance to the simple exploitation of territory by the nation-state.3 The fact that the borderscape is partially deterritorialised, “not contained in a specific space”,4 and more wide-ranging in its material practices of demarcation than any specific borderline of territorial sovereignty, gives the borderscape an inherent resistance to state demarcation.
As borderscapes, borders in fact cannot be reduced to instruments of terms of inclusion/exclusion as conveyed by metaphors such as “Fortress Europe” but must be expanded to include what is happening every day at the EU’s external borders as reflected in the agency of migrants. What emerges are borders as fields in which processes of traversing and crossing meet those of reinforcement and blocking and in which borders are produced by social institutions and migration as a social force. The borderscapes perspective therefore transcends the panoptic gaze implicit in “border spectacles” as it follows the discursive and performative construction of migration, refugee crises and their consequences in a wider socio-spatial context. This perspective also goes beyond Eurocentrism because migrants and refugees become actors and protagonists of change as well as persons subject to multiple forms of victimization. Different artistic expressions of borders and border crossings can be regarded as expressions of resistance to official understandings of EU southern frontier and as local politics of a new in-between identity that dwells in a borderscape where the very concepts of citizenship and Nation-State are questioned.
EUBORDERSCAPES Dissemination
Peer-reviewed articles
Arieli, Tamar (2015) ‘Municipal Cooperation across Securitized Borders in the Post-conflict Environment: The Gulf of Aqaba’. Territory, Politics, Governance. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2015.1042026#.VaUn9vlViko
Bodor, Ákos; Grünhut, Zoltán; Horeczki, R. (2014): Socio-cultural Cleavages in Europe, Regional Statistics, 4 (2): 106-125.
Brambilla, Chiara (2015) “Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept”. Geopolitics 20 (1): 14-34.
Brambilla, Chiara (2016) “From Border as Method of Capital to Borderscape as Method for a Geographical Opposition to Capitalism”. Bollettino della Società geografica italiana (forthcoming)
Bueno Lacy, Rodrigo and van Houtum, Henk (2015) “Lies, Damned Lies & Maps: EU’s Cartopolitical Invention of Europe”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23 (4): 477-499.
Cooper, Anthony (2015) Guest Editorial: Where are Europe’s New Borders? Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23 (4): 447-458.
Durand F. (2015) Theoretical Framework of the Cross-border Space Production – The Case of the Eurometropolis Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30(3): 309-328. DOI:10.1080/08865655.2015.1066701.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and van Houtum, Henk (2013) Europe without an Endpoint. Period, Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 104 (2): 243-249.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and van Houtum, Henk (2014):The Deadly EU border control, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 13 (2): 295-304.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier, and Abel Albet-Mas (2014) “EU-Limboscapes: Ceuta and the proliferation of migrant detention spaces across the European Union”. European Urban and Regional Studies (published on-line before print 2013). DOI 10.1177/0969776413508766.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier, Abel Albet-Mas and Keina Espiñeira. “The Borderscape of Punta Tarifa: Concurrent Invisibilisation Practices at Europe’s Ultimate Peninsula”, Cultural Geographies 22.3 (2015): 539-547. DOI 10.1177/1474474014547336.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and Henk van Houtum. “Europe without an Endpoint. Period”. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 104.2 (2013): 243–249. DOI 10.1111/tesg.12013.
Herzog Larry and Sohn, Christophe (2014) The Cross-border Metropolis in a Global Age. A Conceptual Model and Empirical Evidence from the U.S.-Mexico and European Border Regions, Global Society. Published online 1 September 2014. DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2014.948539.
Jacob, Lauranne and Suchet, André (2013): Territorial Thinking and the Legal Framework in Cross-Border Cooperation: The Recent Situation and Fieldwork Results in the Western Alps. European Journal of Geography, 4 (4): 20-32 (Online at http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:48260).
Kolosov V.A. Vendina O.I. (2014) The youth in Kaliningrad, Gdansk and Klaipeda: geopolitical vision of the world, identity and images of each other. Baltic Region, 4(22): 4-26.
Laine, Jussi (2016). The Multiscalar Production of Borders: an Introduction. Geopolitics DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2016.1195132.
McCall, Cathal (2013) ‘European Union Cross-Border Cooperation and Conflict Amelioration’, pp. 197-216 in Space and Polity vol. 17, no. 2.
Pötzsch, Holger. ”Art Across Borders: Dislocating Artistic and Curatorial Practices in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region”. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30.1 (2015): 111-125. DOI 10.1080/08865655.2015.1036099.
Pötzsch, Holger. “Seeing and Thinking Borders”. Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Bordermaking. Eds. Chiara Brambilla, Jussi Laine, James Scott, and Gianluca Bocchi. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015. 217-227. ISBN 9781472451460.
Pötzsch, Holger. “The Emergence of iBorder: Bordering Bodies, Networks, and Machines”. Environment & Planning D: Society & Space, 33.1 (2015), 101-118. DOI 10.1068/d14050p.
Schimanski, Johan. “Border Aesthetics and Cultural Distancing in the Norwegian-Russian Borderscape”. Geopolitics 20.1 (2015): 35-55. DOI 10.1080/14650045.2014.884562.
Schimanski, Johan. “Seeing Disorientation: China Miéville’s The City & the City”. Culture, Theory and Critique 57.1 (2016): 106-120. DOI 10.1080/14735784.2015.1122543.
Richard Y., Zotova M., Sebentsov A. (2015) Russian exclave in the Baltic region: challenges and limits of its development. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, Article 719. http://cybergeo.revues.org/26945.
Sebentsov A., Zotova M. (2013) Geography and economy of the Kaliningrad region: limitations and prospects of development. Baltic region, 4(18): 113-131.
Sebentsov A., Zotova M. (2016) Тourism and cross-border cooperation in Kaliningrad region, Vestnik MSU, 4. (in print) (in Russian)
Sebentsov A.B. Zotova M.V. (2016) Kaliningrad as a tourism enclave/exclave? Tourism and Geopolitics: Issues and Concepts from Central and Eastern Europe (in print) (in English)
Sohn C. (2015) Navigating borders’ multiplicity: the critical potential of assemblage. Area. DOI: 10.1111/area.12248.
Sohn C. (2014) Modelling cross-border integration: The role of borders as a resource. Geopolitics, 19(3): 587-608. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2014.913029
Studzińska D. (2014) Ruch bezwizowy a rozwój turystyki na pograniczu polsko-rosyjskim/ The visa-free zone and tourism development in the Polish-Russian borderland. Przegląd Geograficzny, 86(4): 525-540.
Studzińska D. Nowicka K. (2014) Mały ruch graniczny z perspektywy władz lokalnych i mieszkańców. Przykład granicy polsko – rosyjskiej/ The Local border traffic from inhabitants and local authorities' point of view. The case of Polish - Russian border. Prace i Studia Geograficzne, 54: 275-288.
Studzińska D., Domaniewski S. (2016) Borders as a resource: a comparative analysis of life in two Polish border towns at the EU external border. Quaestiones Geographicae. (in press)
Wolfe, Stephen. “Border Aesthetics/Border Works”. Nordlit 31 (2014): 1-5. ISSN 1503-2086 [no DOI].
Wolfe, Stephen F. “A Happy English Colonial Family in 1950s London? Immigration, Containment and Transgression in The Lonely Londoners”. Culture, Theory and Critique 57.1 (2016): 121-136. DOI 10.1080/14735784.2015.1111157.
Zotova M. Sebentsov A. (2015) Transcarpathia and Kaliningrad regions: contrasts and cross-border cooperation in the Eastern borderland of EU. Izvestiya RAN. Seriya Geograficheskaya, 3: 57-71. (in Russian)
Zotova M., Sebentsov A., Golovinа E. (2015) Kaliningrad region in the EU surrounding: cross-border cooperation and socioeconomic contrasts, Vestnik ZabSU, 3(118): 145-157. (in Russian)
Zotova M.V. Sebentsov A.B. Golovina E.D. (2015) Transcarpathian Oblast and Kaliningrad Oblast: Contrasts and Cooperation in the East Borderlands of the European Union, Regional Research of Russia, 5(3): 212-222.
Books
Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, and Frédéric Giraut (eds) (2015) Borderities: The Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Brambilla, Chiara; Laine, Jussi; Scott, James W.; Bocchi, Gianluca (eds.) (2015) Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making. London: Ashgate.
Cooper, Anthony (ed.) (2016) Where are Europe’s New Borders? Critical Insights into Contemporary European Bordering. London: Routledge.
Ilkka Liikanen, James W. Scott and Tiina Sotkasiira (eds), The EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood. Migration, Borders and Regional Stability. Routledge, London.
McCall, Cathall (2014) The European Union and Peacebuilding: The Cross-Border Dimension, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Major Scientific Conferences
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference “Mapping Conceptual Change in Thinking European Borders”, University of Bergamo (Italy), July 4, 2013
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the IVth EUGEO Congress, La Sapienza, Rome, September 5, 2013
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the AntiAtlas des Frontières / AntiAtlas of Borders Conference, Aix-en-Provence, 30.09-02.10.2013.
EUBORDERSCAPES Panels at the Association of Borderlands Scholars 1st World Conference “Post-Cold War Borders: Global Trends and Regional Responses”, Joensuu (Finland), June 6, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the XIV BRIT Conference: The Border as a Source of Innovation, Arras (France), Lille and Mons (Belgium), November 4-7, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference “Borders at the Interface”. Beer Sheba/Jerusalem, Israel, December 7-11, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Meeting Border Studies and the New World (Dis)order: Relating Theories and Practice, Portland, 8-11.04.2015.
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the Vth EUGEO Congress, Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest, 1-3 September 2015
EUBORDERSCAPES Policy & Impact Conference: Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe, London, University of East London, November 11, 2015
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference, Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, January 28-29, 2016.
Media contributions, interviews
Albet-Mas Abel; Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2014) Gibraltar, 300 años de juego geopolítico. Le Monde Diplomatique. Nº 222, Abril 2014. http://www.monde-diplomatique.es/?url=articulo/0000856412872168186811102294251000/?articulo=3ee7a6b5-acfa-4cc9-90c2-f9b149b473ba
Espiñeira, Keina. “Me interesa explorar el nexo entre arte y política”. Interviewed by Manu Yáñez. Otros Cines Europa, 28.01.2016.
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2015), Elecciones Generales en Gibraltar.Ceutaldia.com 28/11/2015. http://www.ceutaldia.com/content/view/110265/63/
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2015) Simios y diplomacia en Gibraltar. Público.es 20/02/2015. http://blogs.publico.es/dominiopublico/12618/simios-y-diplomacia-en-gibraltar/
Ferrer-Gallardo X., Albet-Mas A. (2014), Gibraltar versus Espanya: una golejada geopolítica? Directa, 355, 26/03/2014.
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2014) Roca y burbuja. Público.es 19/07/2014. http://blogs.publico.es/otrasmiradas/2456/roca-y-burbuja/
Krasteva, Anna: Krasteva A. TV show “Brussels 1” on the future of Schengen. TV Bulgaria on Air, 9 January, 2016
Krasteva, Anna: To be a foreigner today in Europe and to be a Bulgarian abroad. Bulgarian National Radio, 18 January, 2016
Krasteva, Anna: The refugee crisis resuscitated the national egoisms. In: Club Z no. 10, 2015
Krasteva, Anna: The EU policy on relocation of refugees. Bulgarian National Radio, 15 June, 2015
Ristolainen, Mari. “Rajanainen”. Interview by Laura Määttänen (photo Lauri Rotko). Sunnuntaisuomalainen, Sunday supplement of four newspapers: Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, 03.05.2015: 15; Karjalainen, 03.05.2015: 17; Keskisuomalainen, 03.05.2015: 9; Savon Sanomat, 3.5.2015: 35.
Sohn C. (2015) De la ligne au bordering. La frontière en haute definition. Interview for the magazine Agir par la Culture, 44, Hiver 2015, Brussels.
Van Houtum H. (2015) Red Schengen: maak een museum van de grenspost in Wyler, Column, in: Gelderlander, 7 november 2015
Van Houtum H., Weerd de R. (2015) De macht van de Islamitische Staat is nooit in één kaart te vatten, De Correspondent, 10 juli 2015
Van Houtum H. (2015) Solidariteit, deelname aan TV programma Filosofisch Kwintet, 2 augustus, 2015
Van Houtum H. (2014) Interview, Limburg: Euroscepsis en nationalistische sentimenten houden de ontwikkeling van de Euregio Maas-Rijn tegen, p. 20-24, De Groene Amsterdammer, 7 Augustus
Van Houtum H. (2014) Interview voor Nijmegen1-TV over de film ‘Wegen’ (samenwerking filmmaker en Nijmegen Centre for Border Research)
Van Houtum H., Eker M. (2013) Interview: Grenzen verdwenen, barrières niet, in: Gelderlander en de andere regionale Dagbladen Wegener, 25 juni
Van Houtum H. (2013) Interview op radio 5 (en digitale TV) OBAlive over boek ‘Van droom naar daad’ : ”Grenzen zijn menselijke bedenksels”, interview met Paul Rosenmoller en Mieke Spaans,
Project Video Films
1. The Invisible Enemy Across the Wall: Israeli and Palestinian Children’s Perspective of the “Other”, director Renen Yezerski (2015), 30 min., in cooperation with EUBORDERSCAPES Work Package 5:
a. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference “Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe”, University of London, 10-12.11.2015.
b. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference ”Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders”, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2016
c. available on youtube
2. Houdoud al bahr / I Confini del Mare / The Mediterranean Frontiers. Mazara - Mahdia, directors Chiara Brambilla and Sergio Visinoni (2015), 60 min., in cooperation with EUBORDERSCAPES Work Package 5:
a. LampedusaInFestival, Lampedusa, 23-26.09.2015.
b. Opening lecture of the Master Course on Epistemology of Globalization taught by Prof. Mauro Ceruti, Master Programme in Cultural Studies and International Relations, IULM University of Milan, 08.10.2015.
c. “Le Mamme di Lampedusa”, Laboratorio Bambini dai 10 anni, PortoM, Lampedusa, 16-17.10.2015.
d. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference “Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe”, University of London, 10.-12.11.2015.
e. Bachelor Course on Migration and Cultural and Linguistic Strategies for Intercultural Services taught by Prof. Paola Gandolfi, Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, 19.11.2015.
f. Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies, SOAS, University of London, 02.12.2015.
g. Master Course on Sciences of Globalization taught by Prof. Gianluca Bocchi, Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, 10.12.2015
h. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference “Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders”, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2016
i. Auditorium di Piazza Libertà, Bergamo, in cooperation with the course “Le migrazioni nel Novecento. Strumenti per conoscere e capire”, Fondazione Bergamo nella Storia onlus in cooperation with Museo Storico di Bergamo/Associazione Amici del Museo Storico di Bergamo/Fondazione Serughetti La Porta/Ufficio Scolastico Territoriale di Bergamo, 21.03.2016
j. Symposium “Borderscape as an Interdisciplinary Concept”, Université du Luxembourg, 08-09.04.2016
k. Teatro Garibaldi, Mazara del Vallo, in cooperation with Euro-Arab Institute of Mazara del Vallo, 16.04.2016.
l. II Edition of the Festival delle Letterature Migranti, Palermo, 7-11.10.2016
3. The Colour of the Sea: A Filmic Border Experience in Ceuta, director Keina Espiñeira (2015), 28 min. /
Tout le monde aime le bord de la mer, director Keina Espiñeira (2016), 18 min. (facebook page, available on-line in USA at Festival Scope):
a. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference, Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe, University of London, 10.-12.11.2015.
b. selected to compete for the Tiger Awards competition for short films at the 45th International Films Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR), 27.01-07.02.2016.
c. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference, Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2916.
d. Coding and decoding borders exhibition 13.04-31.05.2016 .at Faculté d’architecture La Cambre/Horta, Brussels
e. Festival Internacional de Cine de Murcia (IBAFF), 01-12.03.2016.
f. Festival Internacional de Cine, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 04-13.03.2016. Official competition.
g. Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 21.03.2016.
h. Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen, Tétouan, 26.03-02.04.2016. Official Competition.
i. Big Ears Festival, Tennessee, 31.03-04.04.2016.
j. Interdisciplinary Ph.D. workshop, From Fieldwork to Writing
, Centre Universitaire de Norvège à Paris (CUNP), 11.-13.04.2016.
k. Association of Borderlands Studies (ABS) Annual Meeting, Reno, 13-16.04.2016.
l. 12th Play-Doc Festival Internacional de Documentales, Tui, 13-17.04.2016.
m. Indie Lisboa 13th Festival Internacional Cinema Independente 20.04-01.05.2016. Official Competition.
n. 13th Festival Internacional de Documentales de Madrid - Documenta Madrid, 27.-08.05.2016.
o. Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, 28.04-08.05.2016. Official Competition.
p. 13th Festival de Cine Africano (FCAT), Tarifa/Tangier, 12.05-04.06.2016.
q. 2nd Festival Internacional de Cine Filmadrid, Madrid, 02-11.06.2016
r. 27th FID-Marseille Festival International de Cinèma, 12-18.07.2016.
s. 13th Festival Internacional de Curtametraxes Curtocircuito. Santiago Compostela, 03-09.10.2016. Official Competition.
t. European Film Awards Ceremony, Wroclaw, 10.12.2016. Official Competition.
4. Out of the Border Box with Gladeema Nasruddin, with involvement of Centre national de la recherche scientifique/Pacte (forthcoming).
List of Websites:
www.euborderscapes.eu
Dramatic situations at and around Europe’s borders have become part of everyday life and they trouble us for many reasons. Not only does the steady stream of people seeking safety from violence and a better future remind us daily of the conflict-ridden reality of the world, we are also forced to confront Europe’s own contradictions and failures. The promises of a borderless Europe, a political community built on solidarity and a pan-European liberal open society appear to be succumbing to fear, xenophobia, opportunism and, in some cases, sheer ignorance. Within this backdrop, the EUBORDERSCAPES project, financed though the EU’s 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, has represented an international and multidisciplinary consortium that has tracked and interpreted conceptual change in the study of borders. The total budget of the project, which finished inMay 2016, is 6,9 Million Euros. The consortium included 22 partner institutions from 17 different states, including several non-EU countries.
The EUBORDERSCAPES project has analyzed conceptual change in relation to fundamental social, economic, cultural and geopolitical transformations that have taken place in the past decades. In addition, major paradigmatic shifts in scientific debate, and in the social sciences in particular, are also considered. The project has been able to provide a nuanced and critical understanding of borders as resources in terms of the exercise of power, the management of conflict, cross-border co-operation, and the everyday negotiation of borders. The project has also investigated how state borders reflect tensions as well as points of connection within intercultural and interstate relations.
State borders are the frame of reference, rather than ethnographic/anthropological boundaries. However, this approach has emphasised the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating “objective” categories of state territoriality and international relations. The research undertaken here has not only been focused at the more general, at times highly abstract, level of conceptual change. This approach will also allow us to compare and contrast how different and often contested conceptualisations of state borders (in terms of their political, social, cultural and symbolic significance) resonate in concrete contexts at the level of everyday life.
In terms of project outcomes, EUBORDERSCAPES research activities have reflected different ways in which political and social borders condition understandings of Europe and a sense of European citizenship and participation. Strands of conceptual change have been derived through the analysis of political language and discursive shifts:
▪ Singling out the most important counter-concepts (Europe – non-Europe, East-West, North vs. South, ‘us’-‘them’, etc.)
▪ The construction of borders and socio-spatial delimitations via discourses of othering, inclusion and exclusion; metaphors of the bridge, the gate, the flank, etc.
▪ Drawing attention to political and institutional contexts and their implications: who produces the given conceptualization, what are/were the stakes.
▪ Developing policy relevant perspectives on borders as they impact social issues such as migration, inclusion, belonging and cross-border cooperation
Project Context and Objectives:
EUBORDERSCAPES is an international research undertaking that has tracked and interpreted conceptual change with regard to state borders. The consortium responded to the European Commission’s 2011 call which indicated a clear concern with the wider political and social consequences of borders. In our specific interpretation of the call, the project consortium understood that de-bordering, itself a hallmark of European integration and an undeniable achievement of enlargement processes, is part of a permanent, recursive and self-referential process of border-making that takes place simultaneously at many different levels. More basically, however, bordering is an intimate part of the constitution of society. Bordering reflects the struggles and contestations inherent in social communication, it is part of that which keeps societies together and recognisable as such, but is also a social force that signals adaptation and transformation. As a result, de-borderung is neither irreversable nor does it necessarily signify a turn towards more cosmopolitan understandings of citizenship and belonging. In this sense, greater awareness of how and why (re)bordering takes place is essential to understanding Europe, the political and social potentials of European Union and the possibility of more open European societies.
As part of our basic methodology, the EUBORDERSCAPES consortium studied the manner in which social, economic, cultural and geopolitical change, particularly since 1989, has influenced understandings of state borders. This has also included an engagement with major paradigmatic shifts in scientific debate, and in the social sciences in particular, will also be considered. State borders are the basic frame of reference but ethnographic/anthropological boundaries are also considered. More importantly however, this approach emphasises the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating “objective” categories of state territoriality and international relations. The present state of debate indicates that the field of border studies has opened up possibilities for questioning the rationales behind everyday border-making by understanding borders as institutions, processes and symbols. Borders are thus not given, they emerge through socio-political processes of border-making or bordering that take place within society.
Since its inception in June 2012 EUBORDERSCAPES has been studying evolving concepts of borders in three major ways: 1) as an important reflection of political, social and cultural change, 2) as an indicator of possible responses to this change and 3) in terms of the differences that state borders make in societal terms – to the opportunities, aspirations, dignity and recognition of groups and individuals. EUBORDERSCAPES will thus focus on the emerging epistemologies of how state borders are perceived, understood, experienced and exploited as political and social resources.
The project is also exploring different areas of conceptual change that can be assumed to have concrete impacts on the ways borders both condition and are conditioned by different institutions and actors. In progressing beyond the state of the art, EUBORDERSCAPES is attempting to demonstrate that important connections can be uncovered between borders as a “challenge” to national (and EU) policies and borders as potential elements of political innovation through conceptual (re) framings of social, political, economic and cultural spaces. The project provides a nuanced and critical re-reading and understanding of borders as resources in terms of the exercise of power, the management of conflict, cross-border co-operation, and the everyday negotiation of borders by “ordinary” citizens and non-citizens. State borders also reflect and thus help us interpret tensions as well as points of connection within intercultural and interstate relations.
Reflecting the ambitious agenda as defined by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Science and Innovation (“The Changing Concept of Borders” - Topic 4.2.1 in the 2011 Call) EUBORDERSCAPES has elaborated a number of research perspectives. The project has also linked a number of social, political and methodological issues in order to develop a truly interdisciplinary approach that includes:
• Socio-cultural dynamics and strategies that inform (and link) regional, national, and supranational/transnational notions of borders (e.g. understanding European borders as symbolic representations of different degrees of cultural affinity, familiarity and “otherness”)
• Questions of governance, democracy, territoriality, solidarity, and legal bases of state sovereignty that are raised by the “securitisation” of borders both between Schengen and non-Schengen EU as well as at the EU’s external frontiers
• In similar fashion, the practical consequences of hardening EU external borders at the same time that new regional co-operation mechanisms (such the European Neighbourhood Policy) and more open regional economic spaces are being negotiated
• The development and consequences of everyday forms of transnationalism, border-transcending, border-negotiating and networking, both within the EU and between the EU and “third countries”. Everyday transnationalism is closely linked to issues of intersectionality (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality) as part of the negotiation of borders for work, family, emotional and other reasons. This will also have direct impacts on work, welfare and immigrant rights that could challenge national welfare systems
• Processes of conceptual change that condition the production of geographical knowledge and representations of regional and cultural spaces that are used to frame social arenas and political landscapes
• The “mapping” of borders as a methodological challenge that incorporates new ethnographic insights, everyday experience, tacit knowledges of borders and border regions and cultural/emotional encounters at borders into the state of art of border research
• The potential of borders as resources in the development of different forms of cross-border co-operation and conflict amelioration
These different but largely interlinked research dimensions have provided an agenda for a more complex understanding of state borders. The common denominator in these research dimensions is the fact that shifting concepts of borders are challenging received notions of how states, state territories, citizenship and identity relate to each other. As a consequence, new ways of thinking of and dealing with borders as tools for framing social and political action are required in order to more genuinely reflect their impacts at various spatial levels of socio-cultural, political and economic interaction.
In performing empirical research EUBORDERSCAPES has drawn from various sources, such as key academic debates, political discourses, ethnographic research, media representations and shifting cultural understandings of the construction of national borders, the project aims to shed light especially on tensions between national understandings in terms of demarcations based on ethnicity, citizenship, language and socio-cultural characteristics, etc., and broader supranational/transnational understandings which address borders as areas of contact (and, to an extent, transition) between civilisations, religious and cultural spheres. In doing this, the project will also attempt to illuminate the consequences of restrictive and securitised border regimes for interstate and intercultural dialogue.
Three important strands of research in this area are: 1) the analysis of borders as markers of historical memory and local identity, 2) the analysis of borders as conditioners of local milieu and everyday attitudes and 3) the analysis of community routines that develop around borders or that are disrupted by border (in)security. Border regions (or “Borderlands”) reflect all of these aspects as they are themselves defined by historical memories of life at borders as well as how by the active engagement of borderlanders with changing border symbolisms and functions. Although formal state boundaries often serve as a reference point in discussions of territory, identity and Europe, it is not just the physical border itself but its various representations that are at issue.
Finally, most of the issues discussed above either directly or indirectly involve ethical issues. Indeed, the resurgence of ethical issues in more contemporary border studies is characteristic of the critical turn in the social sciences since the 1980s. The contemporary ethical focus in border studies challenges the militarization and securitization of everyday life as a result of increasing disparities between cultures and societies but also of ideological cleavages. In addition, discriminatory and often even racist exploitations of the border through official border regimes, visa regulations, immigration policies and treatment of asylum seekers are investigated. As such contemporary research demonstrates how borders lend themselves symbolically and physically (in the form of barriers and controls) to xenophobic exploitation of fear and the reproduction of negative cultural stereotypes. This is particularly evident in the European context where the political concept of “open borders” has been decoded as a partial policy of exclusion that emphasizes border management and that has submitted state boundaries within Europe to general policing and security policies. Examples of ethical perspectives in border studies are:
- a focus on state violence and its consequences for groups and individuals
- interrogating potentials for a democratic governance of borders
- exclusion and discrimination
Border securitization directly affects individual rights, privacy and confidentiality. The sharing of information by intelligence agencies and links between different control networks or databases easily elude democratic control; in Europe the Schengen Information System (SIS), has been criticized for its “democratic unaccountability”. Borders also receive critical scrutiny as they are unevenly permeable for different groups depending on origin, citizenship, material situations and socio-professional background; borders are thus inevitably related with discrimination and social injustice. For instance, the growing closure of EU external borders is compared with legalized apartheid: “the law of birth” determines the people’s mobility across the world.
Even a brief and incomplete outlook on the most important concepts in border studies shows, firstly, their diversity, thematic and disciplinary dispersion and differentiation. Secondly, it demonstrates two impressive paradigmatic shifts: from drawing an optimistic perspective of a “borderless world” (or the “europeanisation” of national borders) to a focus on re-bordering, fencing and increasing securitization which risks to be perpetuated by the growing security-industrial complex and its powerful lobbies and even more by the crisis and the reconfiguration of territorial identities provoked by globalization. New technologies marked the transition in the bordering logics from securing territories and properly borders to securing and filtrating flows. These technologies are erasing the difference between borders and internal regions and are transforming all state territory in a “reticular” borderland. Paradoxically, technological progress did not facilitate human mobility but created new obstacles for it and, moreover, generated new risks on human rights abuse and new moral and ethical problems. The 1990s fad of a “borderless world” was short-lived; on the contrary political boundaries are a bio-ethno-social constant of the human society’s life, because without membranes, it is impossible to regulate the exchange between the ethnic and/or the state territory and the outer world, protecting this territory from the chaos and the waste of human and material resources.
The present state of border studies indicates that recent developments have deeply changed the power of borders; they have modified the dialectical relation between their fixed nature and constantly changing, fluid regime and framed the impact of borders on human activities in a new way. Borders not only have a different meaning for different actors but are a manifestation of power relations in society at different scales. In particular, they reflect the normative power of international organizations, including the EU and the power asymmetry between states in different fields. A review of recent publications shows the lack of comparative and quantitative approaches in border studies. At the same time, border studies open practical ways to the transformation of disputed sections of borders into “borders of peace”. Borders are a crucial condition for openness and cooperation. But these can be achieved only through multilevel, multi-sectoral and long-term approaches that involve transformation at the international, national and local levels. This, in turn, demands cultural changes and new kinds of thinking on both sides of any given border.
Project Results:
S/T Results and Foreground of EUBORDERSCAPES
The overall objective of this WP is to consolidate the cross-cutting aspects of the project and thus link in an effective manner the different WPs. The Workpackage relates bordering processes to salient issues of scientific, social and political importance (e.g. migration, securitisation and border management, questions of European identity, intersectionality, etc.). With this aim, under WP 13 we scrutinize the research findings gathered during the fieldwork conducted in the course of different work packages, as well as compare different cases. WP 13 also indicates global as well as specifically European challenges that derive from changing conceptualisations and functions of state borders (e.g. challenges that border management imply for national policies in terms of immigration, welfare, labour laws, etc). The WP also aims to inform and raise awareness on issues that often are neglected in border research. A further major objective in this context is to generate and formulate policy relevant insights, in particular different policy options and their cost-benefit considerations. As Figure 3 indicates, there are many conceptual and empirical links between work packages which will be exploited to achieve synergy effects in fieldwork as well as in synthesising overall project results. WP 13 was one means of achieving this.
The Cross-Sectional Final Report (Deliverable D13.49) is the output of Research task 4 (RT 4) of the Work Package 13. The report reflects links established between various work packages (WPs) as per Research Task 1 (RT1), and is based on the reports on cross-cutting issues composed by individual partners according to a special template prepared by METU team. These individual reports were composed after the completion of fieldwork, and aimed to synthesize the findings. The report also incorporates Scenarios of Transnationalism and Flexible Bordering, as per Research Task (RT 5), which is also based on scenarios and policy orientations of individual members.
The report is structured according to the template which was prepared in the course of Research Task 2 (see appendix 1). The template, aimed to guide project participants in their efforts to consolidate and structure fieldwork findings in accordance to specific cross-cutting issues that were identified as relevant for the EUBORDERSCAPES research project, consisted of three sections. The first section focuses on conceptual issues; the second on the links between power relations and bordering process. These two sections cover most of the issues that were investigated in the course of the fieldwork. As many important geopolitical developments affecting bordering and conceptualizations of borders in the EU and beyond took place close to or after the completion of the fieldwork, a special section devoted to the impact of emerging problems on borders was added. Finally, a section on policy orientations and possible future scenarios developed in the course of RT 5 of the Work Package, allows to link and integrate findings of research with policy recommendations, both for individual case studies and for the whole project in general.
1. Brief overview of Workpackages and case studies
WP 3 (Post Soviet Borders and Conceptual Change): The main objective of WP 3 is explore the re-bordering of post-Soviet space by examining conceptual change in the rhetoric connected to definition, negotiation and conflict over the (re) formation of post-Soviet and post-Socialist states – and hence their borders. This WP will identify variation and change in the political language of negotiating and legitimizing Post-Soviet borders (based on ethnicity, religion, earlier treaties, international law etc). In addition, work will involve identifying conflicts and debates that have taken place over the just definition of the borders and what have been the main arguments in situations of disagreement. The WP will also include study of change and continuity in the use of the concept of “border” in Central and Eastern European states with the aim of recognizing historical layers in present day conceptualisations of the Eastern external borders of the EU. This workpackage is complimentary to WP 4 (Europeanisation), WP 5 (Post Colonial) and WP 6 (Neighbourhood) in terms of developing a conceptual history of borders from different political perspectives. Research Task 1b will be a shared task with WP 6.
The geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus includes Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Transnistria, Georgia, Kazakhstan.
WP 4 (Europeanisation: European Integration and Conceptual Change) involves a critical investigation of how official policies, political debates, media representations and more informal local “place-making” practices have contributed to process of European border-making and interpretations of national borders. The research focused on divergences and convergences between various modes of European border representations, such as political language, media, academic and cultural discourse. What do these convergences and divergences indicate about images of Europe in terms of openness and closedness (e.g. as reflections of transnational tendencies and tensions and anxieties about identity)?
This WP will complement WP 3 by focusing on shifts in political language with regard to processes of “Europeanisation” on the other side of what used to be known as the Iron Curtain. Of special interests is the process of European integration at different phases of enlargement.
Geographical Coverage and Case Studies: The level of investigation will be on specific national experiences:
1. Pre 2004 accession EU members (Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK)
2. “Post-socialist” member states: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland
3. New (former Yugoslav) states with future membership perspectives: Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina
WP 5 (Post-Colonial Bordering and Euro-African Borderscapes): This workpackage explores “post-colonial” strands of the conceptual evolution of borders, particularly as they apply to the Euro-African context. It relates the overall bordering perspective to the conceptual links between EU-internal, EU-external and non-European borders with special reference to the relational geographies between Europe and Africa. The “blurring” of metropolitan and former colonial borders takes concrete shape in growing transnational communities and hybrid urban spaces within Europe. However, dominant representations of Euro-African borders continue to exclude geographies of imagination, emotions, and belief outside traditional visible geopolitical realm. The objective here is to indicate how post-colonial bordering is impacting on local societies on the one hand and relations between the EU and North African states, e.g. within the context of EUROMED dialogue, on the other. It is important to note that the reference to post-Colonialism does not necessarily refer to specific European empires and their colonies but to a more general European-North African context
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Italian Cities: Bergamo and Genova; Spanish Cities: Sevilla, Barcelona
The Working package is complimentary to several other Work packages and includes several shared tasks. Thus, Research task 1b (EuroMed Dialogue, Migration and Border Discourses) is a SHARED TASK to be coordinated within WP 6 – Neighbourhood (RT 2d). The subproject explored how North African borders are referenced in the political language of official documents as well as in the more informal language of cultural and social initiatives that are involved in “EuroMediterranean” dialogue supported within the context of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). In addition, political issues regarding security, (irregular) migration as well as cultural and ethnic issues that impact on ways these borders are represented at the national level were included in analysis. These research objectives were pursued for the specific cases of Tunisia, Morocco and Israel, in light of issues that condition relations with the EU such as migration, security, social stability, human rights, etc.
WP 6: (Borders and Critical Geopolitics of Neighbourhood): the work package focused on shifts in the political language of borders in relations between the EU and its neighbours within the context of geopolitical shifts since 1990. This also involves the perspective of neighbouring states (Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) on relations with EU in terms of their changing geopolitical roles and border-related concerns. In addition, regional practices of defining frames for action in the implementation of EU policies of regional co-operation (e.g. in the guise of the European Neighbourhood Policy) will also be covered.
Two research tasks from this Workpackage are shared: RT 2b (Post-Soviet States and Shifting Borders of Neighbourhood) is a SHARED TASK with WP 3-Post Soviet borders; and RT 2d: EuroMed Dialogue, Migration and Border Discourses is a SHARED TASK with WP 5 – Post Colonial.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Morocco, Israel; of particular importance is the role of Turkey in the Black Sea region, as a country that simultaneously borders both Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood regions as well as remains an EU candidate.
WP 7 (Cross-Border Co-operation as Conflict Amelioration): investigates the conceptual change through the perspective of borders as resources in cross-border co-operation or as means of conflict-resolution: i.e. what opportunities can be identified for the positive transformation of contested border narratives in terms of cross-border co-operation, conflict resolution and intercultural dialogue? How can security-oriented policies (“securitisation”) be reconciled with a need for greater cross-border and transnational co-operation? This WP addresses issues of bordering and the framing of co-operation and conflict within inter-related contexts of power relations, governance, funding regimes, political will, culture and ethnicity.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: The spectrum of case studies to be investigated is broadly comparative. It includes areas where ethno-linguistic issues complicate cross-border relations (Estonia/Russia, Hungary/Ukraine), regions facing the legacy of competing historical memories (Cyprus, Turkey/Armenia) and areas where post-conflict situations are fragile and fraught with security issues, ethnic tensions and those where conflict remains acute and cross-border co-operation is weak and faces significant physical, political and cultural obstacles (Balkans, Cyprus). In addition, two contrasting examples from the Middle East, Israel/Palestine Authority and Israel/Jordan will expand debate on issues of cross-border governance and conflict resolution.
Case Studies: Ukraine/Russia, Ukraine/Moldova (Transnistria region), Turkey/Armenia, Hungary/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine Authority, Israel/Jordan, Polish/German, Polish/Ukrainian, Polish/Russian borders; Hungary/Serbia (Szeged (H)/Subotica (SRB), Hungary/Slovakia (Komarom (H)/Komarno (SK)
WP 8 (Rebordering State Spaces: Cities, Borders and Integration Processes): deals with economic and political integration processes associated with European integration and their impacts on the conceptual evolution of borders. This WP explores bordering as a “rebordering” of the EU in terms of economic networks, cross-border urban regions and “twin cities” on the EU’s internal and external borders. On the basis of conceptual, discursive and practical distinctions between functional spaces and institutional territories, we contrast the functional dimension of cross-border integration from its institutional counterpart, i.e. market-driven integration from policy-driven integration. This WP is linked conceptually to WP 4 (Europeanisation) and to WP 7 (Cross-Border Co-operation) in investigating if and how politics and policies of the EU have influenced functional interaction across national and external borders.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: three types of urban configurations have been investigated in WP 8:
- Cross-border metropolitan regions (Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, Greater Geneva region, Oresund (Copenhagen-Malmö))
- Urban border regions (Gdansk-Kaliningrad and Nicosia)
- Twin cities (Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice; (Görlitz-Zgorzelec (Germany-Poland), Sátoraljaújhely-Slovenske, Nove-Mesto (Hungary-Slovakia) and Barcs-Terezino-Polje/Virovitica (Hungary-Croatia))
WP 9 (Borders, Intersectionality and the Everyday): The central objective is to promote hitherto neglected areas of border research agendas that address lived, experienced and intersectional (e.g. gender, age, ethnicity) aspects of state borders. The bordering perspective will thus be developed in terms of discursive, practical and interpretational categories that reflect issues of citizenship, identity and transnational migration. This WP will also explore how borders affect groups with regard to gender, race, citizenship, socio-economic status and sexuality. The comparative perspective will encompass in-depth case studies that involve internal Schengen borders (UK/France) and the external EU border (Finland/Russia). In addition, an urban case study (London) of intersectionality and bordering will be carried out. This WP is linked conceptually to WP 5 (Post-colonial) and more directly to WP 10 (Cultural Production) where literary representations of borders by migrants will be studied.
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus : Hungary, UK, Finland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and internal bordering in Budapest, London, Kent, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Kharkiv. Roma in urban case studies of Budapest, London, Kent and Helsinki.
WP 10 (Border-Crossing and Cultural Production): explores forms of cross-border “cultural production” within the overall perspective of bordering. This WP consolidates local perspectives in regard to how culturally produced representations have contributed to cross-border interpretations of state borders as well as challenge official meanings, symbolisms and functions attached to state borders. It analyses cultural and literary works in ways that frame national and European border issues (e.g. citizenship, cultural identities, inclusion, exclusion, cooperation across borders) and contextualise them in terms of historical and changing contemporary relationships. More specifically, this WP will demonstrate how artistic expression and the media address borders and border crossings (migrants, people living at borders, etc.) and their impact for everyday life in Europe (e.g cultural tensions, cultural hybridisation). This WP is most clearly linked to WP 9 (Intersectionality).
Geographical Coverage and Case Study Focus: Cyprus (Nicosia), Italy (Bergamo), Norway/Russian, France/Switzerland, Israel-Palestine; UK, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish immigrant literature
2. Main S/T Results
2.1 Understanding the shifting conceptions of borders
How does each team define border?
In all work packages and for all case studies the research teams have adopted a complex, multidimensional and dynamic concept of borders, encompassing not simply territorial delineation, but also political, social and cultural distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Furthermore, borders are conceptualized as social and political constructs, open to change. The concept of ‘borderscapes’ (reference) plays important role in the conceptualization of border. It expresses “the (geo)political and epistemic multidimensionality of the border, enabling a productive understanding of the processual, de-territorialized and dispersed nature of borders and their ensuing regimes in the era of globalization and transnational flows”. Adopting the borderscapes viewpoint allows to view borders genealogically and to historicize border-making and particularly border-migration nexus. This means rethinking Europe as an “ambiguous space” that reflects its colonial and post-colonial experiences, also understanding the ambiguity that marks the EU’s engagement with its various neighbourhoods.
In our case studies, the understanding of borders as lines of division and barriers, both physical and mental, prevailed. However, in some cases borders’ dual nature, as both dividing lines and areas of contact, was underlined. Understandably, the contact aspect of borders was more pronounced in more open and peaceful borders, where security concerns are not so strong.
Beyond these general understanding, some regional differences can be noted across various case studies. Thus, the bordering processes over the Mediterranean can be conceptualized as subject to ‘dual spatial logic of of cohesion and fracture’. Different approaches are adopted towards ‘desired’ and ‘undesired’ migrants. The neighborhood countries which agree to cooperate in policing and control of EU’s external borders and regulation of ‘undesired migrants’ are granted privileged access to the EU’s own debordered space. At the same time, the undesired migrants, including economic migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa as well as the refugee flows from the Middle East face severe restrictions in their attempts to reach Europe. Morocco, which was granted ‘Advanced status’ in relations with EU in 2008, is a paradigmatic case in point, receiving funding and privileges in exchange for assistance in border control. A similar agreement is now being negotiated with Turkey, in order to control forced migration from the Middle East.
In the post-Soviet cases, the divisive aspects of borders are emphasized and borders are perceived more as issue of state-building than of cultural divisions. In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Ukraine the unjust and arbitrary nature of the current borders, which dates back to early Soviet border-making is emphasized. This contributes to the perception of borders as fundamentally changeable. There is also differentiation among various borders: thus, some borders, such as border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, are completely sealed off, both politically and socially; other borders are seen as more friendly, open, and permeable. In Russia, there is a differentiation between ‘good’ borders (those with ethnically and culturally close Slavic states) and ‘bad’ borders with South Caucasus and Central Asian states, which are perceived as sources of violence, conflict, and migration.
Within the EU, the top-down cross-border cooperation projects have been effective to a greater or lesser extent in changing perceptions of borders from separation lines to areas of contact and exchange. This impact is especially visible between Central and Eastern European states such as Poland or Hungary on the one hand and ‘old’ EU members on the other. The sharp divisions of the Cold War have been replaced by more open, interactive views on borders.
To summarize, borders can be conceptualized along two dimensions: dynamic (de-bordering and re-bordering) and structural, understood in the sense of Giddens’ structuration (enabling and constraining). These dimensions produce four different modalities of bordering process: threat, obstacle, resource and protection
Table 1 - The significance of the border: a conceptual framework derived from structuration theory
Effects over agency
Border dynamics/structure Constraining Enabling
De-bordering Threat Resource
Re-bordering Obstacle Protection
Source: Sohn, 2014.
How are borders made?
In all Work packages and in all case studies, we adopted the view of borders as social and political constructs which are open to change. The borders can be made through various means, including institutional practices, state-led policies at the national and local level, daily interaction, construction of various narratives, discourses and imaginaries through media and art. Yet, the processes involved in making of specific borders vary greatly from case to case: top-down and bottom-up border-making can be complementary, or the two processes can be at odds with each other. Important regional differences can be noted. Thus, within the EU, there is a top-down institutional process of debordering, aiming at removing of borders. However, this top-down policies have resulted in different outcomes in different contexts and for different groups of people. Thus, while business people and civil society generally welcome such debordering policies, they are often resisted on the ground by ordinary citizens, as is the case, for example, on the German side of the German-Polish border. Many citizens remain attached to their national identities and feel that these identities are threatened by the EU debordering. In the Mediterranean, the process of externalization of European border and securitization are most prominent. With externalization, the EU seeks cooperation of neighborhood countries, most notably Morocco, and more recently Turkey, in providing security for EU’s external borders. In former Soviet Union, state plays the leading role in border-making; although in some cases, as in Eastern Ukraine until the recent crisis, everyday practices of interaction and cooperation challenged the formal borders.
Which actors are involved in border-making processes?
There are various levels of actors involved in the border-making processes. These can be conceptualized as institutional vs interpersonal levels, or hierarchically, involving supranational, national, and local levels. The supranational level is represented most obviously by the EU, with its policies of de-bordering within the Union, cross-border cooperation initiatives both within the EU and with the neighbourhood, and cooperation with neighbourhood countries in securitizing EU’s external borders. Furthermore, several types of actors can be identified, including authorities, civil society organizations, entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens. These actors can also operate on different levels, including for example national and local authorities, and local vs national and international civil society organizations. The interests and practices of different actors of the border-making process can sometimes complement or be at odds with each other. Thus, the EU projects often support civil society organizations who are willing to engage in cross-border cooperation. In Swiss-French case, while both the political and business elites have very positive views about open border, some groups of population and some populist movements have been against this. In Russian exclave Kaliningrad region, local authorities, business people, and population alike support softening and opening of the border with Poland, while federal authorities in Moscow are more concerned with issues of state and border security.
How does each team understand the changes in the conceptions of borders socially, politically, culturally and a reflections of territoriality?
The changes in the conceptions of borders can be influenced by a wide variety of actors (see above) and various processes. Within the EU the most important changes were initiated by EU institutions and policies, namely, by the institutional debordering and programs aimed at promoting cross-border communication. But the external borders of the EU are more susceptible to geopolitical processes and changes, for example, the Eastern border of the EU, between Poland and Ukraine/Russia has been affected by the geopolitical changes and the crisis in the Ukraine. Along the Southern borders, in the Mediterranean, our research teams have noted struggles that consist of strategies of adaptation, contestation and resistance that challenge the externalization and the top-down geopolitical control of EU’s external borders, often perceived through the metaphor of ‘Fortress Europe’. Cultural production plays an important role in this process of contestation and challenge of the top-down narratives and policies, such as for example the LampedusaFestival. The festival has become a counter-hegemonic borderscape in which migrants engage in performance and representation of their in-between identities which challenge notions of nation-state and citizenship.
In the post-Soviet states the impact of the dissolution of Soviet Union still exerts influence on the understanding of borders. The conceptions of borders are undergoing continuing change in the region: thus, in Ukraine there is a shift from more state-centered (borders between states) to more nation-centered (borders between nations) perspectives. In the Caucasus there is a process of re-orientation and differentiation amongvarious borders: thus, borders with neighbours who used to be part of the Soviet Union have become stronger and even closed (between Azerbaijan and Armenia); while former Soviet external borders have become more permeable (border with Iran for both Armenia and Azerbaijan, and border with Turkey for Azerbaijan) .
2.2. Power relations with regard to borders
In this section we explore the cross-cutting issues in the impact of power relations upon borders. The first question deals with existing and possibly entrenched political problems, focusing particularly on the intersection of geographical, political and cultural borders. This question focuses on the issues that were addressed in the course of fieldwork conducted in our case studies. The second question addresses emerging problems which began to emerge towards the end or after completion of our fieldwork, and thus could not be fully covered during our research. Yet, the research teams have tried to follow the latest developments and to conceptualize them in the context of fieldwork findings.
How do political problems affect borders and conceptions of borders in terms of:
a. Sovereignty
b. Ethnic and national claims
c. Self determination and political autonomy
d. Self realisation and contingencies of social autonomy
The issues of sovereignty carry different weight in different regions. In Western Europe, for example, fears of loss of sovereignty to the EU do not play significant role in public discourses. However, in South-Eastern Europe, the problems of sovereignty are more acute, and the EU is blamed for failing to guarantee national sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is especially noticeable in the discourses emerging during the recent refugee and immigration crisis. The subsequent erection of fences against immigration from the (non-EU) Balkans and Middle East regions was commented in most national media as an act of “re-establishing sovereignty and the national power to decide”. In another Eastern European case, in Poland, the annexation of Crimea by Russia has raised concerns about security and national sovereignty. In the Southern neighborhood the issues of sovereignty are perceived in the context of de-colonization, and are strongly debated in the cases of Gibraltar and Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, whose belonging to Spain is disputed by Morocco. Rather paradoxically, despite having territorial claims against Spain, Morocco nevertheless cooperates in controlling the EU’s border in these enclaves.
The issues of state sovereignty are more acute in the former Soviet states. Russia under the Presidency of Vladimir Putin has begun to pursue a policy of multi-level and multi-speed reintegration of post-Soviet space, with most advanced form of such reintegration represented by the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) comprising Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Other initiatives included attempts to construct single energy space, including also Turkmenistan and Ukraine. However, what was seen in Russia as mutually beneficial forms of integration has often been perceived by the leaders of post-Soviet countries as constraints on their sovereignty, in both economic and political sense.
In the case of Israel – Palestine, political problems lie at the very heart of border conceptions. They affect notions of sovereignty because of conditions of occupation in which one side has both sovereignty and control, while the other lacks both. The construction of borders, both physical and perceptual based on fear of the other, strengthens notions of self determination and political autonomy for BOTH sides, leading to a desire for the construction of borders based on bilateral agreement rather than the current situation of imposed borders by the stronger side.
The issues of ethnic and national claims are dominate border discourses as well as practices in the post-Soviet space. There is a number of ethno-political conflicts, dating to the late Soviet period, including conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, conflict over Transnistria in Moldova, conflicts over South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and most recently the crisis over Crimea and Eastern parts of Ukraine. All of these conflicts have in common incongruity between formal borders and cultural and ethnic borders, which can be dated back to the Stalin’s administrative divisions as well as imperial history of Russian, Habsbrug and Ottoman empires.
But the territorial claims can also be found beyond post-Soviet space. Thus, Armenia has territorial claims towards Turkey; the disputes over Gibraltar and Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Mellilla are other examples. Yet, within the EU, internal de-bordering has mostly had positive effect on such ethnic and national claims. In Gibraltar, the EU promoted cooperation and interaction with Spain. In Central and Eastern Europe the debates about national minority rights have also become more moderate, for example, in the cases of Hungarian minority in Romania and Serbia. Overall, within the EU, geopolitical issues continue to play bigger role than ethnicity.
In the Southern Mediterranean, the issue of ethnicity has less to do with national claims and more with cultural, and especially religious divides. The associations between European/Christian versus non-European (Middle Eastern or African/Muslim) are rather strong across the southern EU borders, from Morocco to Turkey. In Turkey, for example, it is widely believed that the EU is a “Christian club” which would never accept Turkey as its part.
c. Self determination and political autonomy
Ethnic and national claims are also closely connected to the issues of self-determination and political autonomy. For example, in all of the post-Soviet conflicts cited above the ethnic and national claims have self-determination, ultimately in the form of independent statehood, as their aim. However, there are also some issues pertaining to political autonomy that are not directly connected to ethnicity. The case in point is Russian exclave Kaliningrad region, which has no autonomy and thus is thoroughly dependent on the decision-making in the federal center in Moscow. This is an important constraint on the region’s economic cooperation with the EU, and more specifically with Poland, with whom it shares a land border. The dependence on federal authorities often results in diversion of interests of local and federal authorities. In Eastern Europe, there are some concerns about loss of political autonomy to the EU. However, expectations of funding usually overrode these concerns.
3. How emerging problems affect borders and conceptions of borders with regard to:
- The Refugee Situation
- Geo-strategic Problems (e.g. current crisis between Russia and Turkey)
- Radicalism and violence
The refugee crisis that unfolded in Europe last year has begun after the completion of the fieldwork for most of the Workpackages, and therefore no detailed findings can be presented. However, monitoring of media and observations in the countries of case studies research suggest a general tendency towards fortification and securitization of the borders. There is a strong tendency in to medialize “the refugee crisis” which spectacularizes and simplifies narratives of migration, and these narratives dominate the public sphere. Migration from Middle East is often perceived not as refugee crisis, but also as a potential source of criminality and especially terrorism for Europe. While these tendencies are strongest in the countries closest to the external borders of the EU, particularly Mediterranean and South-East Europe, there are also calls for fortification of internal EU borders, thus challenging the achievements of debordering process. This has to do less with the migration flows themselves, but more with the perceived unfairness of the proposed quota system, which is especially opposed in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. In these countries the refugee crisis and the failure of the EU to deal with it have given rise to Euroscepticism and critique of liberalism and multi-culturalism.
In the Mediterranean, where the issues of refugees and more generally forced migration have been significant for a longer period of time, there is a more complex response. The inadequacy of EU’s response to migration from Meditteranean has long been observed in the region. The recent crisis on the one hand resulted in the tendency towards fortification and securitization of borders; however, because of the perils of the sea-crossing which results in many tragedies and loss of life, the humanitarian narrative here is stronger. Thus, Mediterranean becomes the space where humanitarian and securitarian discourses collide, as migrant (i.e. A person in need for humanitarian action) meets a smuggler (i.e. a criminal). In this aspect, the cooperation of the EU with its neighbors in controlling the borders is becoming even more important. The mechanism of joint control was previously already tested, with some success, in the case of Morocco, where Morocco has received privileged access to the EU and softening of the border regime, as well as financial assistance, in return for its cooperation in readmission of migrants. The current agreement on Middle Eastern migrants between the EU operates according to a similar logic; however, there is strong opposition within EU towards the opening of borders with Turkey
The rise of radicalism and violence on the borders is also related to the refugee crisis, and more generally, to perceptions of migration. This is a widely used narrative, that can be found, for example, in the West bank, where Israel justifies building of a wall with the threat of terrorism and violence emanating from Palestine. Similar logic has been employed by Russia, which had closed its borders with Azerbaijan and Georgia due to fears of terrorist threat. However, radicalism and violence also rise on the other side of the borders. Currently in Europe in addition to fears of trafficking of goods and people, and of the terrorist threat spreading into Europe with the flow of refugees, there has also been radicalization of right-wing groups in Europe itself, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in Western Europe.
Among the emerging geostrategic problems that affect borders the most important issue is the so-called Ukrainian crisis, following the annexation of Crimea and unfolding of violent conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The strongest impact has been on the Russian Ukrainian border, outside of the areas of military conflict. There is considerable strengthening of border controls from the Ukrainian side, restrictions on crossing the border by Russian men, and these actions are in contrast with the previous practices of open border that used to be crossed on foot. The perceptions of this process of fortification in Ukraine depend on the geo-political orientations: thus, pro-Russian citizens do not perceive the border as a source of threat, while pro-Ukrainian support the fortification. The crisis has also affected border with Poland: there is decreased border traffic between Poland and Russia, while at the same time the traffic between Poland and Ukraine increased. Furthermore, the perception of threat coming from Russia gave rise to calls to abolish visa-free regime with Russia. Similar concerns with security were expressed in Finland, where the Ukrainian crisis was interpreted as a collapse of multi-polar world, and the Finnish-Russian border became seen not simply as EU’s external border, but as a civilizational boundary between the West and Russia.
Further away from Russia’s borders, in Bulgaria, the Ukrainian crisis led to a separation of discourses into pro-Russia and pro-EU strands, and a raising awareness of Bulgaria’s importance in the new geopolitical context. In Germany, the response has been more mixed, and changed considerably over time. In the beginning, it was perceived as an outcome of intervention of multitude of players, including US and EU, and only after unfolding of conflict in Donetsk the discourses shifted towards the confrontation between ‘the West’ and Putin. These interpretations pointed to a new perception of Ukraine’s border as and external border of the EU, and thus are a case of ‘rebordering from a distance’.
The crisis also had an indirect impact on borders in post-Soviet space. Thus, following the Ukrainian crisis Armenia and Georgia have found themselves separated by new division line, as Armenia joined Eurasian Economic Union, and Georgia reaffirmed its integration with the EU. This has potential of complicating relations between the two neighbouring countries
4. How are borders perceived and constructed through:
- Daily experiences
- Stories (e.g. narrative-building with regards to everyday bordering in terms of biographies, literature, art)
-Interpretations of crisis situations (e.g. Ukraine, refugee crisis, Austerity and Euro crisis)
Different patterns of daily practices of cross border interaction can be noted in different regions: Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, external borders of the EU, and post-Soviet borders. In Western Europe, which constitutes debordered core area, open borders are routinized and seen as 'business as usual'. However, considerable differences can continue to exist between everyday practices and official discourses. Thus, in Geneva and Lille local authorities have fully embraced EU debordering, while ignoring anti-EU sentiments on the ground. In the case of UK-Ireland border, there is an 'active reconceptualization of a national border as an EU border'. Both national and local media downplay the role of the EU and interpret the developments as part of the UK-Ireland peace process or unification of Ireland, thus “re-nationalising” the European impact on the border".
One common observation from a variety of case studies is that formal debordering, i.e. opening of borders, implementation of visa-free regimes, and promoting of cross-border cooperation, does not necessarily lead to removal of social borders or mental barriers. Language differences play important role in perpetuating these mental barriers. This has been observed in cases as different as German-Polish and Polish-Russian border and the metropolitan area of Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai. The mental barriers are deconstructed only in relatively small sectors of population, i.e. among bilingual young professionals.
In the case of more conflictual and closed borders, one of the interesting findings, reflected in the film produced for WP10, has been the lack of understanding of similarity between border practices and border narratives on different sides of the border. The images of threat, fear, dirt exist on both sides of the border, and in fact mirror each other. This is also true for social borders in ethnic/migrant enclaves that exist in urban and metropolitan areas.
Furthermore, the cross-border interactions are often asymmetrical. Thus, while both Polish and Russian citizens frequently cross border in Kaliningrad region, Russians do so much more frequently, and the main goal for them is shopping for all kinds of consumer goods, which are cheaper on the Polish side of the border. Polish citizens cross the border to buy gasoline, which is cheaper in Russia. The interaction across Polish-Ukrainian border is similarly asymmetrical, with Ukrainians crossing mostly for reasons of work and study, while Polish visit Ukraine for short ‘sentimental vacations’. Similar process is taking place in German-Polish border, which is crossed much more frequently by the Poles.
Everyday experiences of borders vary greatly according to various groups of population. Thus, younger people in Central and Eastern Europe are more active in cross-border cooperation and interaction; the mental barrier remains stronger for older people. Similar dynamic is observed in Italian-Tunisian border, where second generation of Tunisian migrants have multiple and hybrid Arab/Italian identities. Businessmen in all our case studies have been active in exploiting the economic opportunities presented by the border. On the other hand, civil society is most active where it is also supported by the EU or local authorities. In the absence of such support, cross-border activities can fade away, as was the case with Russian-Ukrainian border region Slobozhanschina.
In terms of narrative construction, the opening of the borders and increased interaction does lead to more multi-vocal perspective and can help to change perception of borders from division lines into areas of contact. However, care must be taken not to silence those voices that oppose debordering. This is especially relevant in the core debordered area of Western Europe, where debordering has become a dominant discourse. Yet, populations often resist that and emphasize the significance of national belonging, even as they engage in cross-border activities.
An important aspect of cross-border interaction has been the communication via various technological means such as Skype, without physically crossing of border. While this form of interaction is rarely considered in border studies, our research, especially in the Polish-Ukrainian case, has demonstrated that technology can be a powerful tool in reducing the separating effects of borders. For Ukrainian students in Poland such communication, which can be very frequent and regular, has been crucial in retaining contacts with their families.
Daily experiences of border are also affected by the interpretation of crisis situations. The constraints imposed on interaction across Ukrainian-Russian border and the decrease in traffic across Russian-Polish border are some of the examples. In the Mediterranean, Ukrainian crisis had little impact; however, the events of the Arab spring affected border interaction considerably, as the capacity of Libya and Tunisia in controlling their borders was undermined. At the level of discourses and narratives, they play an important role in medializing crisis situation, i.e. Refugee problems. Cultural production such as literary works, autobiographies, art, can both contribute to the simplified hegemonic media discourses or challenge it by creating alternative, counter-hegemonic narratives and imaginaries.
5. Linkages between Traditional and Post-Traditional Borders
How does your WP/case study reflect on the linkages between traditional (geopolitics) and post-traditional (everyday practices) borders and bordering? Please consider the themes below where relevant:
a. Gender
b. Migration
c. Identity Politics
d. Conflict Amelioration
e. Cross Border Cooperation
While the original question suggested binary opposition between traditional (geopolitical) and post-traditional (everyday practices) understandings of borders, our research suggests mutual infiltration of everyday practices with geopolitical imaginaries and hierarchical practices of control. Therefore it is more relevant to speak not of the continuum between the two poles, but rather of the plurivocality of experiences of the border. The concept of borderscapes that we employ is the main conceptual tool that links traditional and post-traditional notions of borders.
A. Gender/Age
Gender can play an important role in structuring experiences of borders. This is especially the case in migration. Thus, in Italian-Tunisian border, where temporary seasonal migration of fishing workers from Tunisia was replaced by more permanent immigration following the restrictions on migration introduced with Martelli law of 1990. While season migrants were generally male, when the migration became more permanent they had brought with them their families.
In some cases, the constructed symbolic borders between femininities and masculinities can intersect with cultural borders and with geopolitical borders. This becomes especially visible in narratives of immigrant LGBT resistance to established norms in host and diasporic communities and in narratives of inter-generational conflict focusing on patriarchal honour cultures, arranged marriages, FGM or cross-cultural families. From the analysis of men’s and women’s narratives of migration we can conclude that masculinity and femininity generate different experiences of the border, and often the role of family and relationality may be more easily addressed in women-authored narratives of border and crossing. The trope of home, however, is central to migrant narratives more generally and has a particular role in the making of diasporic identity and migrant subjectivity – as our analysis of the role of food in autobiographical writing shows it is a link with the past and serves as a means to reconstruct and maintain ethnic identity.
Another important dimension that emerged from our fieldwork was the role of age in the experience border. This is especially true in the Central and Eastern Europe and in former Soviet Union, where the legacies of Cold War borders are felt more strongly by the older generation. Thus, in German-Polish border, young people are much more active in cross-border interaction, and they also feel more ‘European’. Similar dynamic is observed along Poland’s border with Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, within former Soviet Union, older generation has particularly difficult time with accepting the strengthening of what used to be fully open administrative borders between Soviet republics. Although the experiences of such closures are different, from practically open, until recently, border between Russia and Ukraine to closed border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, many older people are nostalgic about free travel within Soviet Union. In Mediterranean border, intergenerational differences play important role in strategies of adaptation as well as in identity construction. Unlike the generation of their parents, second generation Tunisian migrants in Sicily has developed multiple identities and belonging to both Italian and Tunisian cultures.
B. Migration
One area where the tension between traditional and post-traditional borders is most obvious is migration. The experiences of migration are extremely varied in different cases. In Polish-German border, there has been a change from long-term emigration (from Poland to Germany) to a more temporary, short term travel for work, business, leisure. On the Polish-Ukrainian border the trend is opposite: from short term travel towards long-term migration for work or study. Ukrainians are much more active in this migration flow than the Poles. Another aspect of the tension between geopolitics and everyday practices is the petty trade in military gear on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Thus, a peaceful border is temporarily transformed into an ‘informally militarized zone’. On the other hand, there are also changes in migration between Russia and Poland. While overall traffic has decreased following the geopolitical changes of the crisis in Ukraine, travel for shopping still continues. At the same time, there is also a trend for students from Kaliningrad to study in Poland. Studying in Poland is often preferred to local university in Kaliningrad, while at the same time it is cheaper than studying in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
In the Mediterranean, the practices of securitization and fortification reflect the continuing importance of traditional, geopolitical understanding of borders. At the same time, the practices of control and survaillance from a distance and outsourcing of border control functions to North African states suggests shifts in traditional forms of border control.
C. Identity politics
In CEE region, the cosmopolitan cross border or regional identities hardly ever appeared. Political attempts to implement "Europeanized" identities usually meet with local resistance, and local identities are shaped by national sense of belonging. The only exception is young cultural and functional elites in G-P border, who stress cross-border cooperation and bi-lingual education, and thus are able to create few local ‘paradoxical enclaves of cosmopolitanism". However, the existence of ethnic kinship or cultural similarity in the border regions certainly helps to soften borders and make them more permeable. This, for example is the case in Polish-Ukrainian border. New immigrants living on the border stress their ‘in-betweenness” in relation to the cultures in which they are immersed, which can be considered a form of border identity.
In post-Soviet space, Russia has stressed the importance of ‘compatriots’ and ‘Russian speaking’ people, who continue to live in the countries of former Soviet Union. This group plays important role in the construction of the concept of ‘Russian world’ (Russkii Mir), an association of all those who feel connected to Russian culture regardless of their citizenship. The repercussions of this identity are far-reaching, as the concept of Russkii Mir is also a cornerstone of Russian foreign policy. The importance of this identity can be further observed in the case of Eastern Ukraine, and Transnistria where pro-Russian orientations continue to shape perceptions of borders, even in the context of military conflict.
D. Conflict amelioration
With regards to conflict amelioration, the EU’s role on Ireland and UK border and in Gibraltar suggests positive impact of increase in daily interaction on the peace process. In Ireland, the opening of the EU border has been interpreted as a part of UK-Ireland peace process. Consequently, there are some expectations that cross-border interaction and the EU can have positive impact on conflicts in former Soviet Union, in particular, Transnistria and Karabakh. However, such expectations have so far not materialized. Even in the case of the most open of the post-Soviet conflict borders, in Transnistria, the regular cross-border interaction has not led to any progress in the resolution of political conflict.
E. Cross-border cooperation
Top-down Europeanization and cross-border cooperation initiatives have had some impact, although long-term effect of such policies in the absence of EU funding remains questionable. In Central and Eastern Europe, these top-down policies were partially resisted by both elites, who sought to protect their privileges, and populations, who opposed the encroachment on their understanding of ethnicity and nationalism. In this region the top-down debordering quickly turned into Euroscepticism and short-term re-bordering with the onset of refugee and Ukrainian crises. In some cases, such as Russian-Ukrainian Slobozhanschina Euroregion as well as cross-border cooperation projects in the Russian-Finnish border, the withdrawal of funding at the end of the programmes have significantly undermined cooperation activities. However, in Kaliningrad region, the cooperation continues with the involvement of local authorities, business people and populations, without significant support from the EU.
In the core debordered area in the Western Europe, despite well developed interaction, the attitudes towards open borders remain ambivalent. In metropolitan border areas, such as Greater Geneva and Lille-Kortjik-Tournai, despite high level of functional integration that is supported by political and business elites, populist movements call for rebordering.
Proximity to border can also have an effect on cultural activities. Cross-border cooperation initiatives often involve various cultural events, festivals, fairs, etc. These activities usually take place at more peaceful borders, and can give rise to long-term partnership and collaboration. This, for example, has been the case in the contemporary art scene in north-west Russia. However, border art projects are also highly vulnerable to the geopolitical changes. Thus, in the Russian case, with the strengthening of state control, the funding from Scandinavian countries, which used to sustain this collaboration, has become unwelcome, and the artists who were engaged in this collaboration have been marginalized as ‘foreign agents’. A new border between ‘us’ and ‘them’ has been drawn.
6. Policy Options and Scenarios
Considering the situation and changes observed in your WP/Case Study how do you see the future developments and what could be the policy option for the countries involved and EU?
In considering future developments and possible policy responses it is important to distinguish between various roles that the EU plays in different borderscapes, as well as different border context. The first line of distinction is between internal and external borders. Within the EU borders, the EU has played a role of “mastermind of integration”, and it has been relatively successful. However as reflected above, these successes have not been uniform and there are important differences between the ‘core debordered area’ of Western Europe and the borders with/between newer EU members in Central and Eastern Europe. EU’s top-down policies and initiatives were able to engineer debordering and promote interaction across national borders, not least by mobilizing local civil society. In some cases, such as for example German-Polish border, the imaginaries of top-down EU domination of the border interaction have been replaced by imaginaries of autonomy and self-reliance. At the same time, EU should take more seriously the feelings of those who resist debordering and emphasize their national, as opposed to European, belonging. Silencing of these alternative discourses and neglect of such feeling has potential of destabilizing the process of debordering and can lead to a rise of xenophobic discourses and movements, even in rather prosperous and well integrated areas such as Greater Geneva. "Whatever the level of de-bordering and related functional integration, national borders remain strong markers of identity and difference, either in a virtual or actual sense. The instrumental approaches to cross-border cooperation (e.g. planning of transportation infrastructures, enhancing labour market integration, resolving negative externalities, etc.) that dominate current initiatives do not address the resurgence of national and protective re-bordering claims and are therefore not sufficient in order to promote a sustained cross-border integration. Confronted with a relative deterritorialization, there is a need to recode the state border as an object of recognition able to promote a shared sense of place and belonging"
In the external borders, EU’s policies have been far less successful. In many cases, such as in the Mediterranean, EU’s response to migration across the sea has been regularly described as ‘inadequate’. The policy of control and surveillance from a distance and outsourcing of policing of EU’s borders to neighboring countries such as Morocco and Turkey has failed to resolve the problems of migration. In the Mediterranean therefore there is a need, even an urgency, for a more committed EU, which would not only promote the Eurocentric vision but would become more attentive to the local contexts and local problems. Such a policy shift would also require “broadening the spectrum of actors involved"; "grasping the dialogic nature of bordering processes and imaginaries, as well as the tension between institutional formal modes of political agency and social non-formal modes of agency". The currently proposed mechanism of immigration quotas is also inadequate for resolving the refugee crisis. The EU needs to acknowledge that the current arrangement is asymmetric and puts unjustly heavy burden on peripheral states; "There is need for a balanced concept that redistributes costs, and puts security and the humanitarian aspects of migration into a balanced perspective. "
EU’s geopolitical involvement in Eastern neighbourhood, particularly in Ukraine, has been also a controversial issue with greatly differentiated responses across the EU and in the post-Soviet space. The possible scenarios as well as policy recommendations that emerge from the differently positioned actors in this regard are inevitably complex and sometimes contradictory. Thus, in South-East Europe this involvement as led to rising Euroscepticism, and thus threatens still fragile process of European integration. Along the Eastern borders of the EU fears of getting involved in an international conflict and concerns for the security of national borders has been growing, and in our fieldwork was felt particularly strongly in Poland. The considerations for the stability of the European integration project Eastern Europe in the context of an ongoing military conflict without a solution in a foreseeable future suggest the need “to reduce geopolitical activities in the region as much as possible”.
However, things look very different from the other side of the EU border. Particularly, in Ukraine, which has been the site of the military conflict as well as is at the core of EU/Russia’s tense relations, greater engagement of the EU is sought and recommended. The trajectory of Ukraine’s increasing integration with the EU, most recently through an Association Agreement, suggests a need for a mor comprehensive EU policy towards this country. In particular, it is noted that EU’s relations with its Eastern Neighbourhood should be more differentiated and involve close interaction between those countries that have moved further in the process of association with the EU, such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. However, in the current geopolitical context such integration trajectory leads to increasing tensions with Russia, which in turn lead to rising security concerns in the neighborhood. Ukraine seeks EU’s greater commitment to its own security; with particular regards to the borders this commitment is envisioned as EU’s assistance, technical and financial, in strengthening Ukraine’s borders with its neighbors.
At the same time, EU has important, and yet not fully tapped potential in conflict resolution. The success of EU’s engagement in Northern Ireland and in Gibraltar, which helped to increase interaction and cooperation of conflicting sides serves as a good example for other conflicts in the region. From Palestine to Transnistria to Nagorno-Karabakh EU is perceived as an honest broker and its mediation in the conflicts there is perceived as having potentially positive impacts. However, at least in the post-Soviet space, such involvement would also require collaboration with Russia, which is difficult to achieve in the current context.
Finally, one area where EU’s involvement has been highly effective is support of civil society, both within the EU and in the neighborhood. Although the impacts of this support may be less obvious and less immediate, they can have significant long-term effects in a variety of contexts, from conflict amelioration to cultural production. This policy recommendation is also related to the call for a more committed EU above and the engaging of wider range of actors.
In the sphere of cultural production, the EU can (1) facilitate the role of cultural production in “despectacularizing” and “dereducing” narratives of border crises presented in the media by journalists and politicians. ‘Slow media’, such as literature and film, can bring more wide-ranging narratives into public debate, reducing the impact of simplified media discourses. (2) The EU can also facilitate creative and ethical ways of making individual experiences of border-crossing accessible in the public sphere. The range of such experiences should not be limited only to border-crossers, but should include wider range of actors, such as bureaucrats, police and local residents. Cultural production can suggest strategies for an ethics of representation (avoiding spectacle, victimization & surveillance) when dealing with border-crossings. Ethical considerations include facilitating sharing of the sensible without risk to actants (3) It is also important to Explore through further research the memory and utopia dimension of migrant border-crossing, including collective and individual memories of migration and of countries of origin.
Potential Impact:
The four years of EUBORDERSCAPES have been extremely productive and the consortium has succeeded in maximizing the overall social and scientific impact of the project. Not only in terms of academic output, documented in four conferences, numerous articles, several special issues and book publications, but also in terms of reaching out to concerned stakeholders and activists. In addition, EUBORDERSCAPES has emphasised the cultural, aesthetic and literary negotiation of borders. Several art exhibitions and events as well as four finely crafted films give evidence of the complexity of the borderscape as imaginary, historical memory, everyday lived space and narrative. EUBORDERSCAPES reflects very different ways in which political and social borders condition our understandings of Europe. Accordingly, policy relevant aspects of the project will involve different levels of political and economic agency and a variety of social spheres. Furthermore, in terms of impact, policy relevant issues developed within the project have centred on issues such as the contradictions between security concerns, European values of tolerance and respect for cultural difference and tendencies towards national “consolidation”. The implications of borders and “bordering processes” understood in political and socio-cultural terms will have a direct bearing on the development of a greater sense of European citizenship and participation. Based on the issues targeted in WP 13 (Cross-Sectional Analysis and Policy Considerations), the consortium has formulated specific messages that enhance the overall societal impact of the project:
1. Issues related to the EU’s internal bordering (for example, labour migration, illegal immigration, asylum issues, border management, the Schengen visa rules and border regime) that represent a challenge to deeper European integration and the EU’s future social and economic development.
2. Issues related to European and national integration policies and the challenges of multiculturalism.
3. Issues related to the impacts of the European Union on its regional neighbours. This includes the direct impacts of border management policies as well as other broader aspects of border-related conditionality that the EU is applying as part of its regional co-operation policies.
With a specific regard to policy impact EUBORDERSCAPES has generated discussion on many political, social and cultural issues related to borders with a bearing on the formulation of policy. While our policy insights cannot be directly translated into policy action, we believe that they can inform stakeholders and the wider policy community, including civil society actors, who deal with very immediate concerns that relate to migration, mobility, cultural openness and diversity within Europe. In concluding, we suggest three major ways in which the complexity of border-related issues can be made more understandable and the everyday impacts of borders more transparent.
1. Bridge the gap between border knowledge and practice
By understanding bordering as an everyday process of interaction between different groups and social needs we argue that it would be possible to foster innovative policies capable of promoting a more comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges that open borders signify. The ways in which we theorize borders have a very real implication for the borders we practice. Today’s methodological advances point out the need to overcome oppositions between narratives and theories, between theories and practices, by highlighting, instead, how it is in their interplay that a new “emotional” knowledge could be produced.
2. Broaden the spectrum of actors involved in border policy
Border policy should pay much attention to the specific contextual and historical conditions of contemporary borderlands, thereby advancing a perspective which gives voice to a multiplicity of individual and group stances on contemporary borders. This entails identities, perceptions, beliefs, and emotions. We need to inquire about people’s practices and experiences of dealing with the border interactions, both political and territorial, as well as symbolic and cultural. At the same time, this grounded diversity of perspectives and practices should be related back to the broader economic, political and geopolitical shifts defining contemporary flowing borders, in order to better understand the dialogue between the various scales of action through which borderscapes are made and experienced.
We should involve different and sometimes new actors who can constitute nodes of cooperation networks across borders, to exploit opportunities for new forms of interaction and thus improve dialogue. A bottom-up perspective (“policy-from-below”) should be adopted in order to avoid reproducing a Eurocentric vision and simply projecting and replying European values. We also need to develop tools for improving communication and cooperation among different actors, to strengthen existing relations and to add new actors previously not included.
3. Develop a relational approach to borders in border policy
A relational perspective would take into account complementary perspectives considering the interaction between political visions and everyday socio-cultural practices as well as social representations and artistic imaginaries. This would help to advance border policy based on complementary perspectives capable of grasping the dialogic nature of bordering processes and imaginaries, as well as the tension between institutional formal modes of political agency and social non-formal modes of agency that co-constitute contemporary borderscapes.
Finally, we need to shape and foster innovative border policies that engage and critically address the multilevel complexity of borders – from the geopolitical level to the level of social practices and cultural productions. This would represent a significant shift in border policy perspective that might offer a real opportunity to fully capture the many implications that the constantly changing historical, political, and social contemporary world’s contexts imply at different scales.
Impact: developing the borderscapes concept
The work of the EUBORDERSCAPES consortium suggests that more traditional concepts of border-making can be expanded to encompass the social imaginaries; borderscapes are social/political panoramas that emerge around border contexts and that connect the realm of high politics with that of communities and individuals who are affected by and negotiate the EU’s Mediterranean borders. As an example of the scientific impact of EUBORDERSCAPES we suggest developing the borderscape concept as a way of thinking about the border and bordering processes not only on the border, but also beyond the line of the border, beyond the border as a place, beyond the landscape through which the border runs, and beyond borderlands with their territorial contiguities to the border.1 The borderscape functions along the lines of Appadurai’s ethnoscapes, technoscapes, mediascapes, etc. These terms help deal with the “global cultural flow[s]” and the “imagined worlds” in which people live.2 As such the borderscape is a flexible concept, following interweaving flows and connections, and an inclusive concept not necessarily limited by any clear spatial border. Rajaram and Grundy-Warr privilege the concept of the borderscape as indicating “the complexity and vitality of, and at, the border”, emphasising its status as a landscape of resistance to the simple exploitation of territory by the nation-state.3 The fact that the borderscape is partially deterritorialised, “not contained in a specific space”,4 and more wide-ranging in its material practices of demarcation than any specific borderline of territorial sovereignty, gives the borderscape an inherent resistance to state demarcation.
As borderscapes, borders in fact cannot be reduced to instruments of terms of inclusion/exclusion as conveyed by metaphors such as “Fortress Europe” but must be expanded to include what is happening every day at the EU’s external borders as reflected in the agency of migrants. What emerges are borders as fields in which processes of traversing and crossing meet those of reinforcement and blocking and in which borders are produced by social institutions and migration as a social force. The borderscapes perspective therefore transcends the panoptic gaze implicit in “border spectacles” as it follows the discursive and performative construction of migration, refugee crises and their consequences in a wider socio-spatial context. This perspective also goes beyond Eurocentrism because migrants and refugees become actors and protagonists of change as well as persons subject to multiple forms of victimization. Different artistic expressions of borders and border crossings can be regarded as expressions of resistance to official understandings of EU southern frontier and as local politics of a new in-between identity that dwells in a borderscape where the very concepts of citizenship and Nation-State are questioned.
EUBORDERSCAPES Dissemination
Peer-reviewed articles
Arieli, Tamar (2015) ‘Municipal Cooperation across Securitized Borders in the Post-conflict Environment: The Gulf of Aqaba’. Territory, Politics, Governance. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2015.1042026#.VaUn9vlViko
Bodor, Ákos; Grünhut, Zoltán; Horeczki, R. (2014): Socio-cultural Cleavages in Europe, Regional Statistics, 4 (2): 106-125.
Brambilla, Chiara (2015) “Exploring the Critical Potential of the Borderscapes Concept”. Geopolitics 20 (1): 14-34.
Brambilla, Chiara (2016) “From Border as Method of Capital to Borderscape as Method for a Geographical Opposition to Capitalism”. Bollettino della Società geografica italiana (forthcoming)
Bueno Lacy, Rodrigo and van Houtum, Henk (2015) “Lies, Damned Lies & Maps: EU’s Cartopolitical Invention of Europe”, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23 (4): 477-499.
Cooper, Anthony (2015) Guest Editorial: Where are Europe’s New Borders? Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 23 (4): 447-458.
Durand F. (2015) Theoretical Framework of the Cross-border Space Production – The Case of the Eurometropolis Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30(3): 309-328. DOI:10.1080/08865655.2015.1066701.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and van Houtum, Henk (2013) Europe without an Endpoint. Period, Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 104 (2): 243-249.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and van Houtum, Henk (2014):The Deadly EU border control, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 13 (2): 295-304.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier, and Abel Albet-Mas (2014) “EU-Limboscapes: Ceuta and the proliferation of migrant detention spaces across the European Union”. European Urban and Regional Studies (published on-line before print 2013). DOI 10.1177/0969776413508766.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier, Abel Albet-Mas and Keina Espiñeira. “The Borderscape of Punta Tarifa: Concurrent Invisibilisation Practices at Europe’s Ultimate Peninsula”, Cultural Geographies 22.3 (2015): 539-547. DOI 10.1177/1474474014547336.
Ferrer-Gallardo, Xavier and Henk van Houtum. “Europe without an Endpoint. Period”. Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 104.2 (2013): 243–249. DOI 10.1111/tesg.12013.
Herzog Larry and Sohn, Christophe (2014) The Cross-border Metropolis in a Global Age. A Conceptual Model and Empirical Evidence from the U.S.-Mexico and European Border Regions, Global Society. Published online 1 September 2014. DOI: 10.1080/13600826.2014.948539.
Jacob, Lauranne and Suchet, André (2013): Territorial Thinking and the Legal Framework in Cross-Border Cooperation: The Recent Situation and Fieldwork Results in the Western Alps. European Journal of Geography, 4 (4): 20-32 (Online at http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:48260).
Kolosov V.A. Vendina O.I. (2014) The youth in Kaliningrad, Gdansk and Klaipeda: geopolitical vision of the world, identity and images of each other. Baltic Region, 4(22): 4-26.
Laine, Jussi (2016). The Multiscalar Production of Borders: an Introduction. Geopolitics DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2016.1195132.
McCall, Cathal (2013) ‘European Union Cross-Border Cooperation and Conflict Amelioration’, pp. 197-216 in Space and Polity vol. 17, no. 2.
Pötzsch, Holger. ”Art Across Borders: Dislocating Artistic and Curatorial Practices in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region”. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30.1 (2015): 111-125. DOI 10.1080/08865655.2015.1036099.
Pötzsch, Holger. “Seeing and Thinking Borders”. Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Bordermaking. Eds. Chiara Brambilla, Jussi Laine, James Scott, and Gianluca Bocchi. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015. 217-227. ISBN 9781472451460.
Pötzsch, Holger. “The Emergence of iBorder: Bordering Bodies, Networks, and Machines”. Environment & Planning D: Society & Space, 33.1 (2015), 101-118. DOI 10.1068/d14050p.
Schimanski, Johan. “Border Aesthetics and Cultural Distancing in the Norwegian-Russian Borderscape”. Geopolitics 20.1 (2015): 35-55. DOI 10.1080/14650045.2014.884562.
Schimanski, Johan. “Seeing Disorientation: China Miéville’s The City & the City”. Culture, Theory and Critique 57.1 (2016): 106-120. DOI 10.1080/14735784.2015.1122543.
Richard Y., Zotova M., Sebentsov A. (2015) Russian exclave in the Baltic region: challenges and limits of its development. Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography, Article 719. http://cybergeo.revues.org/26945.
Sebentsov A., Zotova M. (2013) Geography and economy of the Kaliningrad region: limitations and prospects of development. Baltic region, 4(18): 113-131.
Sebentsov A., Zotova M. (2016) Тourism and cross-border cooperation in Kaliningrad region, Vestnik MSU, 4. (in print) (in Russian)
Sebentsov A.B. Zotova M.V. (2016) Kaliningrad as a tourism enclave/exclave? Tourism and Geopolitics: Issues and Concepts from Central and Eastern Europe (in print) (in English)
Sohn C. (2015) Navigating borders’ multiplicity: the critical potential of assemblage. Area. DOI: 10.1111/area.12248.
Sohn C. (2014) Modelling cross-border integration: The role of borders as a resource. Geopolitics, 19(3): 587-608. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2014.913029
Studzińska D. (2014) Ruch bezwizowy a rozwój turystyki na pograniczu polsko-rosyjskim/ The visa-free zone and tourism development in the Polish-Russian borderland. Przegląd Geograficzny, 86(4): 525-540.
Studzińska D. Nowicka K. (2014) Mały ruch graniczny z perspektywy władz lokalnych i mieszkańców. Przykład granicy polsko – rosyjskiej/ The Local border traffic from inhabitants and local authorities' point of view. The case of Polish - Russian border. Prace i Studia Geograficzne, 54: 275-288.
Studzińska D., Domaniewski S. (2016) Borders as a resource: a comparative analysis of life in two Polish border towns at the EU external border. Quaestiones Geographicae. (in press)
Wolfe, Stephen. “Border Aesthetics/Border Works”. Nordlit 31 (2014): 1-5. ISSN 1503-2086 [no DOI].
Wolfe, Stephen F. “A Happy English Colonial Family in 1950s London? Immigration, Containment and Transgression in The Lonely Londoners”. Culture, Theory and Critique 57.1 (2016): 121-136. DOI 10.1080/14735784.2015.1111157.
Zotova M. Sebentsov A. (2015) Transcarpathia and Kaliningrad regions: contrasts and cross-border cooperation in the Eastern borderland of EU. Izvestiya RAN. Seriya Geograficheskaya, 3: 57-71. (in Russian)
Zotova M., Sebentsov A., Golovinа E. (2015) Kaliningrad region in the EU surrounding: cross-border cooperation and socioeconomic contrasts, Vestnik ZabSU, 3(118): 145-157. (in Russian)
Zotova M.V. Sebentsov A.B. Golovina E.D. (2015) Transcarpathian Oblast and Kaliningrad Oblast: Contrasts and Cooperation in the East Borderlands of the European Union, Regional Research of Russia, 5(3): 212-222.
Books
Amilhat Szary, Anne-Laure, and Frédéric Giraut (eds) (2015) Borderities: The Politics of Contemporary Mobile Borders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Brambilla, Chiara; Laine, Jussi; Scott, James W.; Bocchi, Gianluca (eds.) (2015) Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making. London: Ashgate.
Cooper, Anthony (ed.) (2016) Where are Europe’s New Borders? Critical Insights into Contemporary European Bordering. London: Routledge.
Ilkka Liikanen, James W. Scott and Tiina Sotkasiira (eds), The EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood. Migration, Borders and Regional Stability. Routledge, London.
McCall, Cathall (2014) The European Union and Peacebuilding: The Cross-Border Dimension, New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Major Scientific Conferences
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference “Mapping Conceptual Change in Thinking European Borders”, University of Bergamo (Italy), July 4, 2013
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the IVth EUGEO Congress, La Sapienza, Rome, September 5, 2013
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the AntiAtlas des Frontières / AntiAtlas of Borders Conference, Aix-en-Provence, 30.09-02.10.2013.
EUBORDERSCAPES Panels at the Association of Borderlands Scholars 1st World Conference “Post-Cold War Borders: Global Trends and Regional Responses”, Joensuu (Finland), June 6, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the XIV BRIT Conference: The Border as a Source of Innovation, Arras (France), Lille and Mons (Belgium), November 4-7, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference “Borders at the Interface”. Beer Sheba/Jerusalem, Israel, December 7-11, 2014
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the Association for Borderlands Studies Annual Meeting Border Studies and the New World (Dis)order: Relating Theories and Practice, Portland, 8-11.04.2015.
EUBORDERSCAPES panels at the Vth EUGEO Congress, Lorand Eotvos University, Budapest, 1-3 September 2015
EUBORDERSCAPES Policy & Impact Conference: Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe, London, University of East London, November 11, 2015
EUBORDERSCAPES International Conference, Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, January 28-29, 2016.
Media contributions, interviews
Albet-Mas Abel; Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2014) Gibraltar, 300 años de juego geopolítico. Le Monde Diplomatique. Nº 222, Abril 2014. http://www.monde-diplomatique.es/?url=articulo/0000856412872168186811102294251000/?articulo=3ee7a6b5-acfa-4cc9-90c2-f9b149b473ba
Espiñeira, Keina. “Me interesa explorar el nexo entre arte y política”. Interviewed by Manu Yáñez. Otros Cines Europa, 28.01.2016.
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2015), Elecciones Generales en Gibraltar.Ceutaldia.com 28/11/2015. http://www.ceutaldia.com/content/view/110265/63/
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2015) Simios y diplomacia en Gibraltar. Público.es 20/02/2015. http://blogs.publico.es/dominiopublico/12618/simios-y-diplomacia-en-gibraltar/
Ferrer-Gallardo X., Albet-Mas A. (2014), Gibraltar versus Espanya: una golejada geopolítica? Directa, 355, 26/03/2014.
Ferrer-Gallardo X. (2014) Roca y burbuja. Público.es 19/07/2014. http://blogs.publico.es/otrasmiradas/2456/roca-y-burbuja/
Krasteva, Anna: Krasteva A. TV show “Brussels 1” on the future of Schengen. TV Bulgaria on Air, 9 January, 2016
Krasteva, Anna: To be a foreigner today in Europe and to be a Bulgarian abroad. Bulgarian National Radio, 18 January, 2016
Krasteva, Anna: The refugee crisis resuscitated the national egoisms. In: Club Z no. 10, 2015
Krasteva, Anna: The EU policy on relocation of refugees. Bulgarian National Radio, 15 June, 2015
Ristolainen, Mari. “Rajanainen”. Interview by Laura Määttänen (photo Lauri Rotko). Sunnuntaisuomalainen, Sunday supplement of four newspapers: Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, 03.05.2015: 15; Karjalainen, 03.05.2015: 17; Keskisuomalainen, 03.05.2015: 9; Savon Sanomat, 3.5.2015: 35.
Sohn C. (2015) De la ligne au bordering. La frontière en haute definition. Interview for the magazine Agir par la Culture, 44, Hiver 2015, Brussels.
Van Houtum H. (2015) Red Schengen: maak een museum van de grenspost in Wyler, Column, in: Gelderlander, 7 november 2015
Van Houtum H., Weerd de R. (2015) De macht van de Islamitische Staat is nooit in één kaart te vatten, De Correspondent, 10 juli 2015
Van Houtum H. (2015) Solidariteit, deelname aan TV programma Filosofisch Kwintet, 2 augustus, 2015
Van Houtum H. (2014) Interview, Limburg: Euroscepsis en nationalistische sentimenten houden de ontwikkeling van de Euregio Maas-Rijn tegen, p. 20-24, De Groene Amsterdammer, 7 Augustus
Van Houtum H. (2014) Interview voor Nijmegen1-TV over de film ‘Wegen’ (samenwerking filmmaker en Nijmegen Centre for Border Research)
Van Houtum H., Eker M. (2013) Interview: Grenzen verdwenen, barrières niet, in: Gelderlander en de andere regionale Dagbladen Wegener, 25 juni
Van Houtum H. (2013) Interview op radio 5 (en digitale TV) OBAlive over boek ‘Van droom naar daad’ : ”Grenzen zijn menselijke bedenksels”, interview met Paul Rosenmoller en Mieke Spaans,
Project Video Films
1. The Invisible Enemy Across the Wall: Israeli and Palestinian Children’s Perspective of the “Other”, director Renen Yezerski (2015), 30 min., in cooperation with EUBORDERSCAPES Work Package 5:
a. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference “Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe”, University of London, 10-12.11.2015.
b. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference ”Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders”, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2016
c. available on youtube
2. Houdoud al bahr / I Confini del Mare / The Mediterranean Frontiers. Mazara - Mahdia, directors Chiara Brambilla and Sergio Visinoni (2015), 60 min., in cooperation with EUBORDERSCAPES Work Package 5:
a. LampedusaInFestival, Lampedusa, 23-26.09.2015.
b. Opening lecture of the Master Course on Epistemology of Globalization taught by Prof. Mauro Ceruti, Master Programme in Cultural Studies and International Relations, IULM University of Milan, 08.10.2015.
c. “Le Mamme di Lampedusa”, Laboratorio Bambini dai 10 anni, PortoM, Lampedusa, 16-17.10.2015.
d. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference “Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe”, University of London, 10.-12.11.2015.
e. Bachelor Course on Migration and Cultural and Linguistic Strategies for Intercultural Services taught by Prof. Paola Gandolfi, Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, 19.11.2015.
f. Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies, SOAS, University of London, 02.12.2015.
g. Master Course on Sciences of Globalization taught by Prof. Gianluca Bocchi, Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Bergamo, 10.12.2015
h. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference “Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders”, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2016
i. Auditorium di Piazza Libertà, Bergamo, in cooperation with the course “Le migrazioni nel Novecento. Strumenti per conoscere e capire”, Fondazione Bergamo nella Storia onlus in cooperation with Museo Storico di Bergamo/Associazione Amici del Museo Storico di Bergamo/Fondazione Serughetti La Porta/Ufficio Scolastico Territoriale di Bergamo, 21.03.2016
j. Symposium “Borderscape as an Interdisciplinary Concept”, Université du Luxembourg, 08-09.04.2016
k. Teatro Garibaldi, Mazara del Vallo, in cooperation with Euro-Arab Institute of Mazara del Vallo, 16.04.2016.
l. II Edition of the Festival delle Letterature Migranti, Palermo, 7-11.10.2016
3. The Colour of the Sea: A Filmic Border Experience in Ceuta, director Keina Espiñeira (2015), 28 min. /
Tout le monde aime le bord de la mer, director Keina Espiñeira (2016), 18 min. (facebook page, available on-line in USA at Festival Scope):
a. EUBORDERSCAPES Policy Conference, Borders and Bordering in Contemporary Europe, University of London, 10.-12.11.2015.
b. selected to compete for the Tiger Awards competition for short films at the 45th International Films Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR), 27.01-07.02.2016.
c. EUBORDERSCAPES 3rd Scientific Conference, Borderscapes and Beyond: Change and Continuities in Thinking, Writing, Making Borders, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, 28.01-30.01.2916.
d. Coding and decoding borders exhibition 13.04-31.05.2016 .at Faculté d’architecture La Cambre/Horta, Brussels
e. Festival Internacional de Cine de Murcia (IBAFF), 01-12.03.2016.
f. Festival Internacional de Cine, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 04-13.03.2016. Official competition.
g. Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 21.03.2016.
h. Festival International du Cinéma Méditerranéen, Tétouan, 26.03-02.04.2016. Official Competition.
i. Big Ears Festival, Tennessee, 31.03-04.04.2016.
j. Interdisciplinary Ph.D. workshop, From Fieldwork to Writing
, Centre Universitaire de Norvège à Paris (CUNP), 11.-13.04.2016.
k. Association of Borderlands Studies (ABS) Annual Meeting, Reno, 13-16.04.2016.
l. 12th Play-Doc Festival Internacional de Documentales, Tui, 13-17.04.2016.
m. Indie Lisboa 13th Festival Internacional Cinema Independente 20.04-01.05.2016. Official Competition.
n. 13th Festival Internacional de Documentales de Madrid - Documenta Madrid, 27.-08.05.2016.
o. Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, 28.04-08.05.2016. Official Competition.
p. 13th Festival de Cine Africano (FCAT), Tarifa/Tangier, 12.05-04.06.2016.
q. 2nd Festival Internacional de Cine Filmadrid, Madrid, 02-11.06.2016
r. 27th FID-Marseille Festival International de Cinèma, 12-18.07.2016.
s. 13th Festival Internacional de Curtametraxes Curtocircuito. Santiago Compostela, 03-09.10.2016. Official Competition.
t. European Film Awards Ceremony, Wroclaw, 10.12.2016. Official Competition.
4. Out of the Border Box with Gladeema Nasruddin, with involvement of Centre national de la recherche scientifique/Pacte (forthcoming).
List of Websites:
www.euborderscapes.eu
