The edited collection offers a practical-theoretical perspective. It is assumed that “spaces and identities emerge from social practices” (p. 9). A reconstruction of media, institutional and everyday cultural practices in border regions is carried out on the basis of various research projects. Luxembourg and the neighboring regions in Belgium, Germany and France form the empirical research context for the individual contributions. Analytically, a distinction is made between three intertwined “border practices” “(1) the establishment of borders as differentiation or self-/foreign regulation to the outside; (2) the crossing of borders as an affirmative and/or subversive act with transformation potential; and (3) the expansion of borders as an ‘in between’ of manifold relations and intersections” (p. 10).
In recent years, the number of people from Luxembourg relocating to the German border area has increased considerably. Based on four different studies dealing with this development, the article shows that cross-border practices have contributed to a relativization of national borders, but that these continue to exist through new demarcations, such as spatial differentiations and social demarcations.
This paper deals with the possibility of elaborating a theory of the bordering that encompasses the different types of border and boundary experience. David NEWMAN refers to his previous works, where he argued that the creation of a common vocabulary between the different disciplines interested in changing border/boundary phenomenon is necessary in order to create a common set of theoretical constructs and frameworks. After an input on borders as institutions and the bordering process, a research agenda for the study of borders is discussed.
The Nijmegen Center for Border Research (NCBR) is a research institute based at Radboud University in Nijmegen (NL). Ongoing research deals with boundaries, identities and cross-border cooperation and interaction.
The aim of the MOT is to facilitate the implementation of cross-border projects. The positioning of the MOT as a network, which is supported at a national level and brings together the involved parties of the border regions, ensures the possibility of a structured dialogue between the authorities (at a national and European level) as well as between local and regional parties.
This special edition focuses on national borders. It deals with the development of border regions and highlights various forms of mobility. It deals with four topics of border studies: daily cross-border mobility, directing commuter flow, cross-border housing migration and the consequences of demarcations.
In this anthology, the authors examine how cross-border regions emerge and what characterizes them. The practices of institutional participants and border area residents in the fields of the labor market, economy, political cooperation, media, everyday life and culture will be analyzed and discussed.
This book summarizes the articles presented in the cross-border research workshops of 2008-2009 organized by the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme of the University of Lorraine in collaboration with the University of Luxembourg. The researchers from different disciplines, such as political science, information or communication studies, history, geography and sociology, came together to exchange ideas about the different approaches to the research object of the border. The questions that form the basis of the empirical investigations deal with the stability, persistence, and traces of the border; representations of territories and borders as well as the dynamics of transcultural and cross-border exchanges.
The three main subjects of study are (1) the border areas visited (political dispositives and social perceptions), (2) media construction and information practices at the level of the Greater Region and (3) the impact of cultural events on transnational representations. The sources used are biographies, questionnaires, surveys and discourse analyses.
The three cross-border metropolises Pôle Européen de Développement de Longwy (PED), the French-Vaud-Geneva metropolitan area and the French-Belgian cross-border platform Flanders – Dunkirk – Opal Coast were analyzed in a national comparative study to show the specific challenges of these areas. Thematic maps were analyzed on three major topics, which were then used to filter out relevant indicators: cross-border dynamics, differences and complementarities, as well as the metropolitan dimension.
Luxembourg has the highest number of cross-border commuters in the EU. They commute daily to the trilingual country from the neighboring countries of Germany, France or Belgium. This results in multifaceted linguistic and cultural constellations of cooperation. This article examines how multilingualism and interculturality are experienced and handled by cross-border commuters in the country. The resulting typologies are based on interviews, interaction analyses and surveys.
