Boundaries, barriers and belonging

2012

European Review

Cultural borders play a significant part in modern European history as well as in the present. This Focus has been chosen in order to enhance reflections on the transcendence of cultural borders; how the crossing is conducted, why we want to move beyond cultural borders, and what actually lies beyond them. The individual articles investigate ways to transcend borders, primarily those of the European nation state, in different genres from the nineteenth century onward. This editorial article introduces the theme of thinking beyond borders and presents the contributions to this Focus. It attempts to situate the issue of Europe´s cultural borders within European history by delving into three relevant themes: the cultural construction of borders, the growing number of recognized nationalities, and the practices of Europeanization.

IMISCOE Research Series, 2016

2011

2011

Routledge eBooks, 2020

, and has conducted anthropological research in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Hungary. He is the co-author of Borders: Frontiers of Identity, Nation and State (1999) and co-editor of Border Identities (1998). His current research is on European policy in Northern Ireland, and he is one of the founders of QUB's new Centre for International Borders Research (CIBR).

1997

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 2005

Both notions elaborated in this article, exclusion and the border, are cultural constructs which can take on different meanings in different milieux. In order to understand socio-cultural exclusion in the context of EU integration and new centralities created by globalization, the project presented here addressed social, cultural and spatial exclusion in peripheral EU border cities and islands. This article focuses on how borderland residents experience socio-cultural exclusion of ‘others’ and of themselves, and forge their spatialities and mappings. It makes distinctions on several levels: geographically, between external and internal EU borders, between ‘transborder’ and ‘bounded’ field sites and between variations of spatialities and mappings; culturally, between boundary gateways and walls, and between socio-cultural and spatial exclusion, isolation and insularity; anthropologically, between social and cultural markers dividing the subject and the ‘other’. Local experiences and spatialities along the border were found to be complex and often in conflict with dominant definitions and preconceptions. This, along with the multiple levels of exclusion and difference found on the EU border, has implications for research priorities and policy restructuring.Les deux notions détaillées dans cet article, exclusion et frontière, sont des concepts culturels qui peuvent prendre un sens différent en fonction du milieu. Afin d’appréhender l’exclusion socioculturelle dans le cadre de l’intégration européenne et des nouvelles centralités créées par la mondialisation, le projet traite l’exclusion sociale, culturelle et spatiale dans les villes et îles situées à la périphérie de l’UE. Il s’attache à la façon dont les résidents frontaliers vivent une exclusion socioculturelle des ‘autres’ et d’eux-mêmes, tout en établissant leurs spatialités et leurs cartographies. Plusieurs plans sont identifiés: un plan géographique, entre frontières internes et externes de l’UE, entre sites ‘transfrontaliers’ et territoires ‘délimités’, et entre divergences de spatialités et de cartographies; un plan culturel, entre accès et remparts frontaliers, et entre insularité, isolement et exclusion socioculturels et spatiaux; un plan anthropologique, entre les repères sociaux et culturels qui séparent le sujet de ‘l’autre’. Le long de la frontière, spatialités et expériences locales se sont révélées complexes et souvent en opposition avec les définitions et a priori dominants. Cet aspect, allié aux multiples niveaux d’exclusion et de différence découverts sur la frontière européenne, influence les priorités de recherches et la restructuration des politiques.

European Spatial Research and Policy, 2009

Abstract: During the last two decades, discourses over the transition process shifted toward a theoretical diversity and a deeper understanding of 'how modernity was reworked in post-socialist context'. It was widely argued that changing social relations were shaped not only by ...

В European culture — the product of Western civilization that grew on the pillars of multiculturalism, expansion and progress. It is a place where for centuries a melting pot of cultures has been a natural driving force of progress and development, to which Europe owes not only its wealth. Europe also owes demographic problems to this, which today constitute the most important subject of scientific debate on the future of Europe and opportunities to maintain the achievements of the past, the level of civilization built by generations. 'Glass walls' invoked in the title of the article are of symbolic nature , no mention is made of real barriers known in history as the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, Hadrian's Wall and others. It is about mental and invisible walls fo-cused around attitudes such as the ethnic and cultural distance, as well as intolerance and prejudices against any otherness. We live in Europe — a place where the foundations were laid for western civilization, from where for nearly half a millennium rays of splendor and development have been reaching almost every corner of the world; we live in a place that has been building its power not only through progress and development, but also blood and suffering. We must not forget the wealth of nations, from which we draw, the achievements of science, which illuminated the darkness of medieval Europe. In gratitude let us create a world friendly for 'foreigners' and demolish walls erected before our eyes. Marek Bodziany