Perceiving borders in conversations - negotiating borders discursively. VIAgg nad Odra

Project lead:

• Prof Dr Konstanze Jungbluth (Professorship holder, European University Viadrina)
• Prof Dr Nicole Richter (Professorship holder, European University Viadrina)
• Prof Dr Florian Dost (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg)

Research team:

• Maria Klessmann (Research Associate, European University Viadrina)
• Dominik Gerst (Research Associate, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Communication Science)
• Slavena Korsun, M.A.

Cooperation partners:

• Dr Anne Isabel Holper (Co-Leader of the Institute for Conflict Management, EUV)
• Prof. Dr Jacek Sójka (Intercultural Communication in Management)
• Prof Dr Lars Kirchhoff (Institute for Conflict Management, EUV)

Funding institution:

European University Viadrina

Project duration:

January 2014 - December 2016

Publications:

• Dominik Gerst/ Maria Klessmann/ Hannes Krämer (Hg.): Grenzforschung. Handbuch für Wissenschaft und Studium (Border Studies. Cultures, Spaces, Orders Vol. 3), Baden-Baden: Nomos 2021.
• Konstanze Jungbluth/ Florian Dost/ Nicole Richter: Betweenness and the Emergence of Order, in: Christian Wille / Birte Nienaber (Eds.): Border Experiences in Europe. Everyday Life - Working Life - Communication - Languages, Baden-Baden: Nomos 2020, pp. 193-216.
• Konstanze Jungbluth/ Peter Rosenberg/ Dagna Zinkhahn Rhobodes (Eds.): Linguistic Construction of Ethnic Borders, Bern/Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang 2015.

Under the direction of Konstanze Jungbluth, Nicole Richter and Florian Dost, research was carried out from 2014-2017 as part of the research training group "Perceiving Borders in Conversations - Negotiating Borders Discursively", which is based at the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION, on questions of border demarcation in interactions and linguistic negotiations around borders. The dissertation projects funded by the Research Training Group focussed on linguistic border work in a border-regional security field (Dominik Gerst), interactive practices of differentiation and border demarcation in a Europe-wide project on the participation of Rom:nja (Maria Klessmann) and the borders between art and commerce (Slavena Korsun).

The joint work of the research group consisted of organising academic events, such as the workshop "The Real Fiction of the Border - Border Regions between Historical Border Regimes, Lifeworld Border Experiences and Political Visions" (2014) with the sociologist Christian Banse (Göttingen). In 2015, the fellows Maria Klessmann and Dominik Gerst organised the Autumn School "Border Crossers in Theory and Practice" together with the political scientist Peter Ulrich, which was funded by the VW Foundation. The one-week Autumn School was very well received by young researchers from the interdisciplinary field of border research. In addition to the individual research of the fellows and doctoral candidates, the aim was also to visualise the joint empirical and conceptual debate and promote international networking.

The doctoral students also worked together on a project on "Linguistic Landscapes in Border Regions" with a focus on the linguistic landscape of the twin city of Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice. In this context, Slavena Korsun, Maria Klessmann and Dominik Gerst organised the seminar "Language in public border areas" at the Viadrina in the winter semester 2014/15. The seminar focussed on linguistic boundaries in the border region between Germany and Poland by preparing a photographic documentation of the linguistic landscape of the twin city of Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice together with students in theory and carrying it out independently in small groups. A GPS-supported linguistic map was created from the collected material and different ways of analysing and interpreting it were developed so that the material could be examined from linguistic, social and economic perspectives. The results were recorded in the form of poster presentations and a project presentation at the Research Factory. Initial results were published in the local magazine "Wir im Quartier" ("Wegweiser durch die Grenzlandschaft. Sprache im öffentlichen Raum der Doppelstadt Frankfurt (Oder)/Słubice", 2015) and in the e-journal "Rhetoric and Communications" ("Multilingualism and linguistic demarcations in border regions. The Linguistic Border Landscape of the German-Polish twin cities Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice", 2015).

 

Dissertations at the Research Training Group:
Bedingte Teilhabe. Interaktive Praktiken der Differenzierung und Grenzziehung in ‚interkulturellen Mediationen‘, Maria Klessmann
Grenzwissen im deutsch-polnischen Sicherheitsfeld, Dominik Gerst
Arts vs. Business: top-down and bottom-up approaches to Pop­-Up retail, Slavena Korsun