Presentation

While, until the 1980s, border studies had largely been dominated by territorial thinking, growing disciplinary diversity and a corresponding wider range of subject areas, research questions and theoretical and conceptual reference points have been emerging from the late 1990s onwards.

In the course of this development, the acceptance has prevailed that borders are socially (re-) produced and thus have to be considered as a result of political, social, economic, ecological and cultural processes. Any study into borders and differences is therefore directed at the processes of their establishment, displacement and crossing rather than at the borders and differences themselves. This “decentering of the border” in favour of “The practice of borders” (bordering) is a methodological principle of the research activities of the UniGR-Center for Border Studies.

This approach can be applied to both material and immaterial borders and affects all social subject areas. It therefore proves adaptable to different spatial and temporal study contexts, various disciplines and research interests.