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Among the tremendous changes affecting Europe in recent decades, those concerning political frontiers have been some of the most significant. International borders are being opened in some regions while being redefined or reinforced in others. The social relationships of those living in these borderland regions are also changing fundamentally. This volume investigates, from a local, ground-up perspective, what is happening at some of these border encounters: face-to-face interactions and relations of compliance and confrontation, where people are bargaining, exchanging goods and information, and maneuvering beyond state boundaries. Anthropological case studies from a number of European borderlands shed light on the questions of how, and to what extent, the border context influences the changing interactions and social relationships between people at a political frontier.
“…provides a rich and thought provoking perspective on encounters and connectivity at the borders of Europe – both internal and external.” · The Journal of Cross Border Studies in Ireland
“As befits anthropology, Border Encounters is rich in empirical detail. However, it is also an excellent introduction to border theory, with a helpful literature review. The theoretical framework clearly set out in the Introduction and the individual chapters do collectively illustrate why borders should be seen as constructs and as sites of asymmetrical social relationships…All in all, this is an intriguing and well-structured volume which will be of interest to students and scholars from a variety of academic disciplines.” · LSE Review of Books
Jutta Lauth Bacas holds a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of Zurich with a special focus on migration studies. She has held teaching positions at universities in both Switzerland and Germany and also worked as a researcher at the Academy of Athens, Greece. Co-founder of the Mediterraneanist Network of EASA, she is a member of the Advisory Board of InASEA and co-editor of issues of Ethnologia Balkanica and the Journal of Mediterranean Studies.
Introduction: Border Encounters – Asymmetry and Proximity at Europe’s Frontiers
Jutta Lauth Bacas and William Kavanagh
PART I: OPENING BORDERS
Chapter 1. Consumer Rites: the Politics of Consumption in a Re-Unified Germany
Daphne Berdahl
Chapter 2. Cross-Border Relations and Regional Identity on the Polish-German Border
Robert Parkin
Chapter 3. Anti-Nuclear Activism at the Czech-Austrian Border
Birgit Müller
Chapter 4. Powerful Documents: Passports, Passages and Dilemmas of Identification on the Georgian – Turkish Border
Mathijs Pelkmans
Chapter 5. Proximity and Asymmetry on the Portuguese – Spanish Border
William Kavanagh
PART II: STRENGTHENING BORDERS
Chapter 6. Asymmetries of Gender and Generation on a Post-Soviet Borderland
Laura Assmuth
Chapter 7. ‘We are all tourists’: Enduring Social Relations and Changing Proximities and Asymmetries at the Romanian-Serbian Border in Different Mobility Regimes
Cosmin Radu
Chapter 8. ‘We used to be one country’: Rural Transformations, Economic Asymmetries and National Identities in the Ukrainian-Russian Borderlands
Tatiana Zhurzhenko
PART III: CROSSING FORBIDDEN BORDERS
Chapter 9. Under One Roof: Six Years of Border Crossings in Cyprus
Lisa Dikomitis
Chapter 10. The Birth of a Border: Policing by Charity on the Italian Maritime Edge
Maurizio Albahari
Chapter 11. Managing Proximity and Asymmetry in Border Encounters: The Reception of Undocumented Migrants on a Greek Border Island
Jutta Lauth Bacas
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index