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Edited by Konstanze Jungbluth, Cornelia Müller, Nicole Richter, Hartmut Schröder
Doing Borderlands Christian Wille, Rachel Reckinger, Sonja Kmec, Markus Hesse (eds.). 2016. Spaces and
Identities in Border Regions. Politics – Media – Subjects, Bielefeld: transcript. This recension aims at reviewing the collaborative scholarly publication of the University of Luxembourg on “spaces and identities in border regions”. The disquisition´s main innovative and novel idea is the application of the praxeological approach – an emerging school of thought in cultural and social theory - to the research domain of border(land) studies. This review is trying to give a critical assessment about this research emphasis of the Luxembourg University that is presented in this book. The review, first, gives an overview about the background of the collaborative publication and the general context of it; second, the main assumptions and hypothesis, utilized theory, concepts and methods and finally, a description of the structure of the treatise and ideas for further research.
Background of the Anthology and general context |
constructed through social practices on a daily basis. Moreover, the emerging field of praxeology serves as a theoretical basis for the different case studies conducted in the interdisciplinary
collaborative venture. The case studies are structured along the triumvirate “Politics”, “Media” and “Subjects”. Thus, the case studies on space and identity constructions focus on institutional, media-related and everyday-cultural practices.
Main assumptions and hypothesis |
of practices that conceptionally include artefacts and in which attributions and interpretations of meaning are (re)produced in not necessarily predictable ways” (p. 35). Territorial, legal, national or political categories are not relevant here – except regarding data collection because all quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews have been conducted in the Greater Region - and the research logic conforms rather “a very limited way to ´nation-state orders´ or to ´binary orders´ of the here/there” (p. 9). Territory and borders are negotiable and under regular scrutiny in the process of “doing space and doing identity” (p. 9). To justify these assumptions – in the following - the authors draw a theoretical framework that serve as a basis for the further analysis.
Theory, concepts and methods |
are used for a fruitful analysis avoiding “the notion of the impact and influence of (national) container spaces” (p. 28).
Structure of the publication |
postdisciplinarity requirement (p. 52 et seqq.). This subchapter verifies the contemporary research paradigm of interdisciplinarity. |
as in-between spaces” (Practices/narratives and transfigurations) (p. 204 et seqq.). This chapter represents the media-related richness of contemporary identity-building and exhibits an extensive selection of media-related case study analysis to describe
different forms of boundary-making: “On thewhole, we can see that media of representation, understood as zones of contact, can indeed enable ´passages´ to be opened up between different descriptive levels: different figurations of border are placed in parallel to and at the same time contrasted at each other” (p. 230). |
border studies: “Of particular interest here was, on the one hand, the relationship of subjectifications and subjectivations – or the shifts and creative forms of appropriation they reveal – and the relationship of spaces and identities in cross-border contexts, on the other” (p. 353).
Review, critique and ideas of further research |
innovative and creative way to refine and further develop the border(land) studies. Praxeology is a research programme that has entrenched in social and cultural theory in the last 15 years and compounds different disciplinary
approaches and offers an open and fruitful analytical perspective (See Schäfer 2016). Especially in the field of borderland studies this approach might be gainful as the post-structuralist and constructivist sumptions allow an open approach to scrutinize identity research in border regions.
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potential of the terms and concepts used. Along the case studies it becomes obvious that the unclarified terms of border region and border areas cannot be held up by all authors. Although the concept
of space is deeply theorized, the usage of the concepts “space”, “territory”, (border) “region”/ ”area” is quite confusing in some case studies as these terms are used by the authors in different ways.
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and disciplinary case-studies that are bundled by the praxeological approach. To integrate about 30 scholars of eight research institutes is not natural and requires a high degree of scientific coordination and fine tuning. The necessity of interdisciplinary
research has also been highlighted in the superfluous subchapter on the current research paradigm on interdisciplinary research in international project research funding (p. 52 et seqq.). Especially the case studies expose the richness and fruitfulness of
interdisciplinary research. Nevertheless, the case studies composition discloses some inconsistencies in the case selectionprocedure. While in chapter three (institutional practices) only four case studies are conducted, in the
other empirical chapters the double amount of cases is presented. Moreover, especially in the part on the institutional practices the cases seem to be arbitrary chosen as there are hardly links between the different case studies that vary from historical
practices (hegemonial representations by historical stately homes, problematization of prostitution in 1900) and contemporary institutional practices (construction of energy regions with the example of Biogas policy and migration discourse in Luxembourg).
As European cross-border region-building is promoted by the European Union, a case study on institutional practices of the Greater Region would be appropriate and expedient. |
economic structure. The de-bordering of the nation-state borders in the Greater Region through the European Integration process, thus, offers a great playground for contemporary identity formation research. In conclusion, the heuristics developed by the border researchers at the University of Luxembourg offer a fruitful and innovative interdisciplinary research approach when examining border regions where social and geopolitical demarcations diverge. Another approach to grasp on border and boundary research is the heuristic elaborated at the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION. The main difference in this heuristic is the approach to use the border as the main resource for analysis: “Starting with the integration of border and boundary theory, our main argument is to consider borders as a demarcation tool, which divides both different spatial, temporal, cultural or social units on the one hand and orders on the other. As such, any border deserves to be studied in its own right, but can simultaneously serve a distinct perspective on these demarcated units and orders. The resulting methodological principle of thinking from the border implies a fundamental change of perspectives: borders move to the centre of attention, rather than being perceived as a peripheral phenomenon.1 This also means taking the complexity of borders more seriously” (Bossong et al. 2017, p. 65 et seq.). References Bossong, Raphael, Dominik Gerst, Imke Kerber, Maria Klessmann, Hannes Krämer, and Peter Ulrich. 2017. Complex Borders: Analytical Problems and Heuristics. In Elzbieta Opiłowska, Zbigniew Kurcz, and Jochen Roose (eds.), Advances in European Borderlands Studies. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 65–85. Schäfer, Hilmar. 2016. Praxistheorie. Ein soziologisches Forschungsprogramm, Bielefeld: transcript. Soja, Edward W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. Van Houtum, Henk, Oliver Kramsch, and Wolfgang Zierhofer. 2005. B/Ordering Space. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. 1 This standpoint also underpins the interdisciplinary research centre B/ORDERS IN MOTION at the European-University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). |
Von Hirschhausen, Beatrice, Hannes Grandits, Claudia Kraft, Dietmar Müller, and Thomas Serrier. 2015. Phantomgrenzen. Räume und Akteure in der Zeit neu denken. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag. Download: Peter Ulrich: Review on Spaces and Identites. 2016. In PRAGMATICS.REVIEWS 2017.5.1 DOI: 10.11584/pragrev.2017.5.1.3 |