European Borderlands: Barriers and Bridges in Everyday life

The chapters of the anthology are divided into three blocks: “Border crossings and border politics”, “Communities, relationships and identities in borderlands” and “Living across the border.” In the introduction, Elisabeth BOESEN presents the overall concept of the anthology and poses the main question of how border narratives can be formulated (p. 4).

In “A routine-based model of everyday mobility in border regions,” Nils MÜLLER examines everyday mobility routines at the German-Dutch and German-Swiss border that, despite the existence of open borders, remain relatively stable. The concept is substantiated by qualitative interviews.

Martin KLATT’s “Dybbøl 2014: Constructing familiarity by remembrance” shows how an INTERREG project tries to contribute to regional development with cultural history in the Danish-German border region, but is only successful on the Danish side, pointing to the complex structure of national majorities and minorities in the border region and their different historical interpretations.

Jaroslaw JAŃCZAK (“Cross-border urbanism on the German-Polish border”) deals with three double cities on the German-Polish border region in his development of models of cross-border sub-urbanization on the basis of discourse analyses, statistical analyses and sociological surveys: “cohabitation” (asymmetric structures and low migration), “colonization” (asymmetric structures and high migration) and “reversed suburbanization” (symmetric structures and high migration).

“What makes a place” by Georg SCHNUER uses qualitative interviews and participatory observation in four villages in the German-Luxembourg border region to explore the question of what clashes are caused by newcomers within the local population.

Taking the international spa town of Baden-Baden as an example, Eva ZIMMERMANN's “Crossing Territorial border and social boundaries” first examines de-bordering processes between 1840-1870 by focusing on the local population and the seasonal workers (casino culture, use of the French language, international products, etc.) as well as on renewed re-bordering through the Franco-Prussian war.

The contribution “Crossing borders” by Lesley Penné in the field of literary studies deals with three German-language novellas from Belgium and illustrates cultural memories and borders as well as how the German-speaking community in Belgium deals with the idea of home.

In “The impact of commuting on close relations,” Keiu TELVE takes a deeper look at the commuter movements between Estonia and Finland and their positive and negative effects, experiences and perceptions on family and friend relationships through qualitative interviews, online surveys, evaluation of social media and participant observation.

In “Cross-border residential mobility of people working in Luxembourg” Birte NIENABER and Isabelle PIGERON-PIROTH examine cross-border residential mobility in the Greater Region on the basis of quantitative data (2003-2013) and qualitative surveys with special consideration of de-bordering and border surfers.

The article “Dwelling in (un)familiarity” by Elisabeth BOESEN and Gregor SCHNUER also deals with cross-border residential mobility and contrasts the residential mobility of Luxembourgers with that of international migrants in the German-Luxembourg border region, using the concepts of “familiarity” and “unfamiliarity” as the basis for their analysis.

The article “The residential and symbolic dimensions of cross-border mobility” by Garance CLEMENT focuses on the middle class moving from Lille (France) to the Belgian border area and, based on qualitative interviews with migrants and local parties, sees borders as a resource.

In his contribution “Asymmetries in the formation of the transnational borderland in the Slovak-Hungarian border region,” Tamás HARDI explains which asymmetries in cross-border cooperation, interaction and travel habits are caused by history, historical border shifts and ethnic and linguistic minorities and thus questions whether the border can be a resource.