German

In border areas, there is a special need for cross-border coordination between the stakeholders of spatial development and spatial planning with regard to spatially relevant challenges and future oriented development processes. The process of creating and implementing cross-border spatial development concepts requires intensive communication and cooperation across borders. However, these can make an important contribution to a coordinated cross-border spatial development and thus bundle resources as well as efficiently direct them to coordinated measures and projects. In addition to this added value of cross-border cooperation, however, there are also numerous points of friction and obstacles, which are caused, among other things, by different planning traditions and cultures, administrative systems and responsibilities, or also concern a lack of knowledge about planning instruments in the cross-border context. In cross-border spatial planning and development practice, these obstacles and the existing spatial challenges can also be countered by sub-spatial or subject-specific cooperation institutionalized and organized at different spatial levels. In this thematic issue, strategies and concepts from cross-border spatial development are presented and highlighted, which deal with different topics of spatial development, reflect a spectrum of cross-border forms of cooperation and organization and discuss the added value.

The year 2020 challenged and put into question seeming certainties. The nation states responded to the spread of the coronavirus with varying restrictions of freedom(s), as well as temporary reintroduction of border controls or closures. 35 years after the signing of the Schengen Agreement, the issue of internal border controls within the EU resurfaced – with varying effects on border regions. Buildung upon a constructivistic perspective and based on a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles of the Saarbrücker Zeitung in spring 2020, the Working Paper traces central discussion processes with a spatial focus on the cross-border area of the Greater Region. Our findings show that reports on securing border crossings outweigh those about reopening borders, underlining the effect of border closings as a sudden rupture with major effects on the lives of border residents, especially cross-border commuters. The actors demand a significant expansion and intensification of cross-border communication and cooperation in response to these experiences.

Over the course of the 20th and 21st century, different forms of cross-border cooperation have emerged and developed within the so-called Greater Region. The France Strategy of the Saarland – announced in 2014 – adds upon these existing efforts, aiming in particular to foster functional multilingualism, and cross-border cooperation in the economic, research, and cultural sphere. In this endeavour, both public and private actors are to be included into the process(es) of implementation. The announcement of the Strategy was met with notable response from the French neighbouring territories. In this context, municipalities serve a double role – on the one hand, they act as a ‚mouthpiece‘ for local interests and needs ‚on the ground‘, on the other hand, they themselves engage in and support cross-border cooperation, and serve as intermediaries for regional guidelines. Based upon quantitative and qualitative research with a focus on the local level, the following policy paper presents central recommendations for action regarding the further direction and implementation of the France Strategy, and more generally cross-border cooperation within the cross-border region of the Saarland and the French département Moselle. The recommendations are divided into five areas, touching upon activities related to the fostering of multilingualism, the support and accompaniment of activities, the fostering of netweks, as well as the further institutionalization of cross-border cooperation within the (trinational) border region.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the reflection on the role of training in the cross-border labor market. It does so by mobilizing the debates initiated in the different Cahiers de la Grande Région and during a conference debate organized online on December 1 2020 on the topic of "Inequities, Skills, and Training: What Equations for the Cross-Border Labor Market?” More precisely, this contribution aims at answering the following question: how can training and its different practices in the professional fields, but also in school and university education, mitigate the imbalances that are emerging on the labor market of the Greater Region? The document thus proposes a few lines of thought for cross-border cooperation in the field of training.

The policy paper 'Action Needs for Spatial Development in the Greater Region from a Research Perspective' summarises key findings of researchers from the UniGR-Center for Border Studies in five areas relevant to the Greater Region (demography and migration, transport, employment and economic development, energy land-scapes, cross-border governance) and formulates options for action for planning practice and political deci-sion-makers. In addition, it addresses the exchange of knowledge between research and politics.

As a reaction to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people all over the world were confronted with a rupture of social and spatial routines. In Germany, the state governments took a leading role trying to contain the further spread of the pandemic by issuing ordinances and regulations. In this context, the way how laws and rules pervade places of everyday life took on another (immediately perceptible) dimension for many people. This article aims at contributing a local perspective on this issue, focusing on the measures taken by the Saarland government. Through the qualitative method of autophotography, individual points of view on the underlying interactions of law, space and society are moved into the center of attention. Through the sociospatial perspective, the impacts of the measures taken by the local government are called into question.

In and with this new issue of Borders in Perspective we invite you to engage in productive boundary work and encourage you to critically examine the relationship between nature and culture in the Anthropocene. In the current geological epoch of the Anthropocene, in which humankind is seen as the central driving force for global changes in ecological systems, seemingly secure boundaries between nature and society are on the one hand dissolving and on the other hand being redrawn elsewhere. The boundaries between society and nature, science and politics or individual disciplines are no longer clearly and easy to define. In view of pressing phenomena such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity and growing social inequalities, cross-border research is needed - research that does not stop at disciplinary boundaries, but transcends them. This issue is therefore intended to provide an impetus for exploring boundary phenomena in the relationship between nature and society, which have so far not been the focus of border studies. The authors of the new issue of Borders in Perspective, for example, examine the various ways in which borders are drawn and dissolved in the Anthropocene from multiple perspectives and multidisciplinary directions.

Cross-border regions are often laboratories for the circulation of ideas and practices. This article asks whether, in Greater Geneva region, it is possible to transpose the cooperative housing model, fairly developed in Switzerland, into the French context, where this type of housing is less common. Using the example of Viry, a French municipality located within the institutional perimeter of Greater Geneva, the article analyzes the possibilities and limits of such a transposition. The results show the difficulty in emulating a context specific to reproducing the Swiss model of cooperatives in France. The legislative and institutional differences, but also cultural differences with regard to housing in its various dimensions are all obstacles to reproducing, identically in France, proven methods of construction of cooperative housing in Switzerland. It is therefore necessary to develop creative adaptations of different kinds so that the original model can find a place in the new context.

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, borders have become relevant (again) in political action and in people's everyday lives within a very short time. This was especially true for the inhabitants of border regions, whose cross-border life worlds were suddenly irritated by closed borders and police controls. However, the COVID-19 pandemic also led to an increased evidence of social, cultural, economic, health and mobility boundaries beyond national borders, which raised pressing questions about social inequalities. The authors shed light on these dynamics from the perspective of territorial borders, social boundaries and (dis)continuities in border regions through a variety of thematic and spatial approaches. The critical observations and scientific comments were made during the lockdown in April and May 2020 and provide insights into the events during the global pandemic. 

In November 2018, the UniGR-CBS organized a joint workshop of its researchers and the scientific council of the SDTGR/REKGR Interreg project as well as stakeholders from the Greater Region. It served as a place to reflect on the spatial development of the Greater Region from a scientific perspective.