Lorraine appears to be subject to continuous outer influences, from the patriotism of 1914 - 18 with its many victims, to the "copy and paste" mode that we see today. Unable to initiate endogenous development, too dependent on outer forces – Lorraine is not even an administrative region today. Lorraine is the victim of "territorialisation" under the neoliberal approach. It has degraded to nothing but a crumbling space, a suburb of Luxembourg and a place where nuclear wastes can be put in final storage. The politicians and elites in Lorraine want to retroactively legitimate and support this exogeneous development..
The first part (part I) is devoted to conceptual aspects of border studies. Geopolitics are elaborated in part II. In part III, border enforcement in the 21st century is studied. Part IV is dedicated to the mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion implied by border tracing. The following section (part V) is devoted to the role of borders in everyday lives. The borderless world hypothesis is questioned. The next two parts entitled Crossing Borders (VI) and Creating Neighbourhoods (VII), are dedicated to borderlands and cross-border processes. In the final part (VIII) the interactions with nature and environment at the border are treated.
