Christian Wille
Fonction
Research scientist
Organisation
Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Identities and Methodologies of Border Studies: Recent Empirical and Conceptual Approaches
Identities and Methodologies of Border Studies: Recent Empirical and Conceptual Approaches
Language(s)
Anglais
Main Category
Introduction
In recent decades, Border Studies have gained importance. So far, however, little attention has been paid to questions about the self-perception and methodological foundations of Border Studies. This thematic issue brings together articles that address and deal with these desiderata.
Summary
In recent decades, Border Studies have gained importance and have seen a noticeable increase in development. This manifests itself in an increased institutionalisation, a differentiation of the areas of research interest and a conceptual reorientation that is interested in examining processes. So far, however, little attention has been paid to questions about (inter-)disciplinary self-perception and the methodological foundations of Border Studies and the associated consequences for research activities. This thematic issue addresses these desiderata and brings together articles that deal with their (inter-)disciplinary foundations as well as method(olog)ical and practical research questions. The authors also provide sound insights into a disparate field of work, disclose practical research strategies, and present methodologically sophisticated systematizations.
Content
The multiplication of border methodology (Gerst/Krämer)
The article identifies four methodological perspectives within border research: Seeing at the border, seeing across the border, seeing into the border, seeing like a border. The central features of these perspectives are elaborated upon and presented in light of various empirical studies. The article proposes an alternative experimental organisation of the diversified field of border studies.
Border or bordering practice? Changing perspectives on borders and challenges of praxeological approaches (Connor)
Despite the popular use of the term "practice", sociological practice theories a still play a minor role in border research. The article shows the extent to which sociological practice theories are compatible with the practice and process orientation in Border Studies. It gives a short overview of praxeological thinking in sociology and identifies methodological challenges that are relevant to the development of praxeological research perspectives concerning borders.
State Borders and Archaeological Ethnography: (Checkpoint) Practice, Materiality and Discourse (Bochmann)
The article discusses the advantages of using archaeological ethnography to research state borders. To do this, the author combines two research approaches: an ethnography informed by ethnomethodology and a Foucauld-inspired discourse analysis and archaeological method. Archaeological ethnography proves to be especially productive as it enables the complexities of state borders to be captured, overcomes the micro-macro division and takes the situatedness of the social and the power-knowledge nexus into consideration at the same time. The text therefore contributes to the methodological discussion and to the epistemological problems in the analysis of state borders.
Cross-border Collaborations as “Contact Zones”: Methodological Reflections on Ethnographic Studies in Border Regions (Kleinmann/Peselmann)
The article is based on in the German-Polish-Czech border region and shows how the contact zone concept can be employed as a heuristic for cross-border initiatives. Contact zones are understood as social spaces, which are pervaded by power relations and characterised by their specific historical development and are derived from the positioning of the actors involved. The authors show how the ethnographic "tracking" strategy helps to constitute the research field and make it accessible for investigations. In addition, participant observation is proposed as a method to investigate the situational (re)productions of contact zones by discursive and bodily practices as well as material arrangements.
Of borderlands and peripheries: The promise of cooperation (Kaden)
This article scrutinises the permeability of Europe's internal borders and considers that the bordering processes rely on reproduction of socio-cultural boundaries. The documentary method is regarded as a promising approach to qualify the relationship between cross-border cooperation practices and everyday bordering processes. This is demonstrated through cross-border urban development in the Polish-German borderland, showing empirically how much cooperation is characterised by tension between absolute and relational concepts of space.
Borders, Migration, Struggles: A Heuristic for Analysis of Border Politics (Sperling, Niebauer, Holderied)
The article outlines a set of premises from critical border and migration studies for a reflective analysis of borders and border politics. The authors discuss the ontological dimension of borders, addressing the constructedness, the productivity and the multiplicity of borders. Secondly, the authors deal with the political dimension of bordering processes, discussing the role of struggles, actors and arenas, as well as social structures. Thirdly, they present some ways in which the global dimension of bordering processes can be analysed.
The Seven Follies of Lampedusa (Dorbolò)
The article uses the example of the island of Lampedusa to show how architecture can upset the dominant narratives around the topics of borders and migration. In order to do this, the text is divided into a consideration of the role of landscape in transforming Lampedusa into a border island, and an architectural proposal for a fictional intervention to counteract this transformation. Based on a line that runs perpendicular to the existing borderline, the proposal symbolically overturns the current image of the border as a line of separation, revealing its potential as a line of connection. This is done through seven architectural interventions that represent the reproduction of social constructions and allow imaginary lines to be converted into real boundaries.
The Approach of Contemporary History to Border Studies in Europe (Wassenberg)
The article examines how contemporary historians interpret Border Studies. It shows that they approach Border Studies from the perspective of global history and that they deal with the research field either through individual case studies in border regions or as a separate research thread on the process of European Integration. The article argues that historians, if they open up to new research methods and adopt a multi-scalar perspective, can contribute to Border Studies with long-term views and a historical context-based approach to borders.
Conclusions
D. Gerst and H. Krämer reconstruct different methodological perspectives in Border Studies and propose a specific heuristic consisting of four "border gazes". The purpose of this distinction is "to provide an overview of the diversity of border-analytic positions and their methodological foundation, and, in doing so, to address a gap in the research field’s self-analysis" (p. 18). With this, the authors are proposing an experimental methodological organisation with appropriate criteria to link research works that are geographically different but practically and epistemologically close.
U. Connor makes the link to the "processual turn" and looks critically at the prominent term "practice": "the meaning of the term 'practice' in border studies […] remains implicit in most of the studies. […] As a research category, the term 'practice' or 'bordering practice' should be clearly distinguished from everyday meanings and explicitly reveal its related assumptions to be subject of critical discussion in the research community.” (p. 34) The author proposes connecting the concept of "practice" with sociological theories of practice and thus theoretically and conceptually strengthening the process-oriented research perspective in Border Studies.
A. Bochmann advocates an archaeological ethnography in view of the complexities of state borders: "State borders are not simply the result of national regulations and (global) discourses and orders; instead, borders are the result of the usage and application of these discourses in public life as well as the local accomplishments of people’s practices." (p. 50) The methodological proposal to investigate this nexus combines ethnomethodologically informed ethnographies with an archaeological-genealogical discourse analysis inspired by Foucault.
S. Kleinmann and A. Peselmann work with an ethnographic approach and in their case study take an interest in the (re)production processes of cultural contact zones. In their study of the effective cross-border cooperation practices, discursive, physical, and material aspects as well as power relationships are taken into account and developed through participatory observations: "We [...] propose participant observation as a tool to examine the situational (re)productions of contact zones by discursive and bodily practices as well as material arrangements." (p. 57).
U. Kaden turns to cross-border cooperation from a praxeological perspective and focuses on the aspect of knowledge. For this, she proposes the documentary method: "Instead of following the cooperation partners’ interpretation of ideas and everyday routines […], attention is being paid to how their practice is accomplished […]. This includes, for example, examining the ways in which cooperation partners illustrate their everyday routines, how they make specific arguments, and how their responses draw on particular narratives, concepts, and references." (p. 75f.) Using this approach, the author is able to show the extent to which cooperation practices are linked to varied and partially contradictory ideas of local cross-border relations.
S. Sperling, D. Niebauer and L. Holderied address border politics and the question of how these can be examined. They locate "border politics" at the intersection of various approaches in critical border and migration research and present a differentiation that "aims at systemizing existing positions and developing an analytical heuristic for studying border politics as border struggles." (p. 87). To do so the authors differentiate between three analytical dimensions that are intended to connect different research approaches.
C. Dorbolò connects various disciplinary approaches to borders through an architectural approach. For that she uses "the power of architecture as a critical tool to challenge the political state of affairs" (p. 105) and show how architecture can destabilize the dominant narratives on borders and migration.
B. Wassenberg examines the role of Border Studies in contemporary history and shows that borders as objects of investigation are mostly related to Area Studies and European integration history. The author suggests opening contemporary history to multi-scalar and integrative research designs: "From a methodological point of view, contemporary historians could […] adopt a Multi-Orientated Scale Approach to European Integration and cross-border cooperation and European Integration (MOSAIC), which reconstructs the development of multiple local cooperation histories in order to reinterpret them in the general framework of the history of European integration." (p. 120). This approach should make it possible to write a new decentered history of European integration.
Lead
Christian Wille (Universität Luxemburg), Dominik Gerst (Universität Duisburg-Essen), Hannes Krämer (Universität Duisburg-Essen
Contributions
Annett Bochmann (Universität Siegen)
Ulla Connor (Universität Luxemburg)
Chiara Dorbolò (Amsterdam Academy of Architecture)
Dominik Gerst, (Universität Duisburg-Essen)
Laura Holderied (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg)
Ulrike Kaden (Universität Leipzig)
Hannes Krämer (Universität Duisburg-Essen)
Sarah Kleinmann (Deutsches Institut für Menschenrechte)
Jussi P. Laine (University of Eastern Finland)
David Niebauer (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen)
Arnika Peselmann (Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg)
Simon Sperling (Universität Osnabrück)
Birte Wassenberg (University of Strasbourg)
Christian Wille (Universität Luxemburg)
Contact Person(s)
Date of creation
2020