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.
This chapter questions the marginality of border areas. The marginal nature of border areas is often highlighted in public politics, but rarely directly presented in all its ambiguity. Although these spaces may contain places of marginalization (prostitution, concentration of various types traffic, accumulation of refugees confined to the border), these situations are far from a generalization. Thus, it isn't enough to define them this way. The ambiguous relationship between borders and margins is addressed symbolically by the various cases (in France and in Europe). To test the character of the margin phenomena, a multi-level approach is proposed.
The cross-border research workshops were organized by the researchers from the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme of the University of Lorraine (MHSL) in collaboration with researchers from the University of Luxembourg. The main topic was the definition of the concept of “border.” Between 2008 and 2009, three workshops took place in order to provide the researchers with a meeting place where they could share and exchange ideas and knowledge.
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.
The author examines the question of whether the intensive number of commuters can actually be described - as is usually proclaimed in public discourse – as a sign of progressive integration or whether it can be interpreted more as an indication of persistent socio-economic imbalances between the sub-regions. To do this, he juxtaposes political visions with empirical realities. In the conclusion “Grenzüberschreitender Arbeitsmarkt zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit” (Cross-Border Labor Market Between Demand and Reality) Christian WILLE underlines the asymmetrical configuration of employment. On the one hand, this is due to Luxembourg’s strong expansion of the service sector and the central position with regard to cross-border employment associated with it; on the other hand, it is clear to what extent the regions in northern France, for example, are still suffering from the structural change. It is therefore more appropriate to speak of a regional divergence in employment. At the same time, however, this heterogeneity of socio-economic conditions must be recognized as a driving force for cross-border employment.
The Association for Borderlands Studies brings together scholars, institutions and experts from various disciplines and regional backgrounds in Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America as contributory members who deal with the topic of “borders.” Joint conferences are organized and a scientific journal (Journal of Borderlands Studies) and a newsletter are published.
The anthology “European Borderlands,” edited by Elisabeth Boesen and Gregor Schnuer, contains an introduction and 11 chapters of content. It deals with everyday practices in European border regions that support social development and cultural identity. Changes in border regions are considered from a historical, sociological, economic, geographical, literary, anthropological or political perspective. The selected case studies are mainly located in border regions between Germany and its neighbouring countries, but also between Belgium and France, Estonia and Finland or Hungary and Slovakia. They show the diversity of border demarcations, which contradict a “borderless Europe” through border narratives.
