Working Papers

In Germany, numerous organisations are involved in advising cross-border companies and private individuals. However, the level of knowledge about the spatial distribution, working methods, support structures, funding and networking of these organisations is low. Although counselling is a structural and structuring component of cross-border connections, the role and importance of cross-border information and counselling has not yet been systematically researched. This report provides information on the results of an exploratory study of publicly funded and free advisory services for cross-border companies and private individuals in German border regions, which was carried out at the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION from November 2022 to March 2023 on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. The study highlights the importance of holistic and open-topic border information points with a regional focus.

Keywords: border information points, cross-border counselling, Euroregions, cross-border cooperation, cross-border activities, cross-border support

 DOI:10.11584/b-orders.12

Nauka i praktyka w dialogu w niepewnych czasach. Transgraniczne usługi użyteczności publicznej w Euroregionie Pro Europa Viadrina i innych regionach w porównaniu

This bilingual brochure deals with a current field of cross-border cooperation in Europe: public services in cross-border areas such as Euro(pa)rgions, Eurodistricts and Euregios. Using the example of the German-Polish Euroregion Pro Europa Viadrina, various forms, projects, services and activities of cross-border services of general interest in the Euroregion are initially presented and then compared with developments in other cross-border regions with German and Polish participation. The brochure is a product of the INTERREG project „Science and Practice in Dialogue: How do cross-border services of general interest and civic participation work in the Euroregion Pro Europa Viadrina?" (2020-2022, financed by the Small Projects Fund of the Euroregion Pro Europa Viadrina), which is carried out by the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION in cooperation with the Collegium Polonicum. As part of this project, an online conference has also been organised in March 2021 and thematic anthologies will be published in German and Polish. The definition of cross-border services of general interest used in the project and the publications understands the term as the „totality of all social and societal services not exclusively based on market mechanisms, which aim to create and strengthen the conditions for the appropriate development and realisation of social and economic potentials at individual and collective level.Specifically, the focus of cross-border services of general interest is on the areas of 1) health and
rescue services, 2) mobility and local public transport and 3) education and training in a cross-border, euroregional context. The articles in the brochure focus primarily on these policy areas.

Keywords: services of general interest, cross-border services of general interest, cross-border cooperation, Euroregion Pro Europa Viadrina, Euroregion, Eurodistrict, border regions, cross-border regions, health cooperation, mobility, transport, civil protection, education, pandemic, crisis, region, science, practice

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.11

Ucieczka i wypędzenia w dialogu europejskim. Pomysły na polsko-niemieckie centrum badań, edukacji i kultury zajmujące się historią regionalną we Frankfurcie nad Odrą

For some years now, the idea of creating a cross-border German-Polish institution in Frankfurt (Oder) that deals with the history of flight and expulsion from the areas of the former province of Brandenburg located east of the Oder and Neisse rivers as part of an overarching regional history has been under discussion. This article explains the historical background and the special regional conditions that could determine the conception of such an institution: It outlines the organisational history of the Landsmannschaft der Brandenburger and the Brandenburg Foundation as well as the legal framework that could make the project possible. This will be followed by an example of a multi-perspective view of the region and the events of 1945, thus providing a European perspective.

Keywords: migration, expulsion, German-Polish relations, Brandenburg Foundation, culture of remembrance

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.10

In 2020, the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons was listed among the top ten in terms of revenue. We analyse the game by relying on an interdisciplinary framework of border studies. Borders can be interpreted not only in a geographical sense but also in terms of a temporal as well as a cultural dimension. We highlight how the game blurs the borders between the real and virtual world.

Keywords: Animal Crossing, Border, real versus virtual world

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.9

This special issue brings together contributions from the Corona blog „Borders and Orders in Motion in Times of the Corona Crisis. Analyses on region and society“ by the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION. The observations and reflections on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on border regions, social dynamics and reorganisations of power structures were made in the period from May to September 2020 and thus deal with the „first wave“ of the pandemic in Europe. The observations focus on examples from the border regions between Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The contributions published here are united by the fact that they refer to political, economic and social order and border demarcation processes with a regional focus or analyse general social phenomena that are also relevant to the region from a border demarcation and order perspective. The special issue thus offers suggestions for further discussion.

Keywords: border research, reorganisation, coronavirus, borders and orders, pandemic, crisis, cross-border cooperation, region, society

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.8

 

The working paper presents two analytical concepts to examine territorial borders: liminality and transnationalism. The combination of both concepts offers an approach to borders and migration practices which takes borders not simply as a point of departure but puts

border zones and their transgressions to the centre of attention, revealing their ambiguous, in-between character. Taking into account empirical observations of complex, multi-directional migration patterns and conceptualising them as liminal transmigration, we challenge the rhetoric of impermeable territorial borders and an enduring, one-way migration flow into Western Europe. Instead, we propose a perspective on borders that not only allows for ambiguities but makes analytical as well as empirical disruptions productive.

Keywords: Borders, Boundaries, Transnationalism, Liminality, Migration

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.7

In some ways, the current diagnoses of mobility research and border research seem incompatible. While the former emphasises the increase in mobility, the latter states the increasing importance of borders. The following article argues that these two findings are not contradictory, but complement each other in an analytically fruitful way. Against this background, it examines various interfaces between the two research approaches. In border research, the topic of the mobility of territorial borders forms such an interface, while in mobility research the focus is on temporal borders. Both approaches include research on the social boundaries of mobility, which can also be seen as an interface. If one follows the „broad“ concept of borders in recent conceptual works from border research, the phenomena of mobility at borders and mobility because of borders also become evident as interfaces. In many respects, this perspective creates a more differentiated picture of borders and their various dynamics. The social orders that surround them can also come into view, as well as those in the various intermediate zones and between the separate fragments.

Headings: Territorial borders, social borders, movable borders, mobility opportunities, border demarcation practices, border zones, border mobility, social order, border sociology, practice theories.

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.6

This text deals with the small Brandenburg town of Eisenhüttenstadt on the German-Polish border and the accommodation for refugees located there. ‚Perspektiven einer Planstadt‘ approaches Eisenhüttenstadt from various angles. As a publication of a student-organised research project, the booklet attempts to describe, comment on and reflect on the various approaches and methods. Some of the results have already been shown in an exhibition, which is why this text can also be read as an accompanying programme to the audiovisual translation of the research results. Key topics are examined and analysed in more detail in focus chapters on LIVING, LEISURES, WAITING & LONELINESS, CRIMINALITY & T and RECOGNITION.

On the one hand, it seems useful to ask how Eisenhüttenstadt, as a peripheral small town on the edge of the Federal Republic, deals and can deal with the initial reception centre for refugees for Brandenburg, and on the other hand, to what extent new social and ethnicised boundaries are drawn with the refugee accommodation in the city.

Key words: refugee accommodation, migration, social boundaries, ethnicity, multimedia research

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.5

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In interview conversations with self-identifying members of Georgia’s shrinking Greek community, consultants regularly contrast aspects of their life that have changed profoundly since the end of the Soviet Union, thereby establishing the end of the Soviet Union as a temporal threshold relating today to a very different yesterday. Based on an ethnographically informed conversation analysis of 49 semi-structured interview conversations, this article aims to further our understanding of what the end of the Soviet Union means to my consultants, contributing a sociolinguistic perspective to current debates in the field of Border and Boundary Studies. I will take two analytical perspectives, both of which highlight different important aspects. Firstly, I follow the metaphor of family breakdown that emerged in the interviews as having occurred on two levels. On a community level, this breakdown of the Soviet “family of nations” is narrated for instance in terms of rising Georgian nationalism. This is perceived as challenging consultants’ belonging to the Georgian nation state and as drawing new boundaries.
On an individual and very tangible level, consultants communicatively have to come to terms with their own families being put under strain through family members’ migration to Greece. Secondly, I follow the tidemarks left by the Soviet yesterday in independent Georgia’s today and how consultants use them to position themselves and their community.

Key words: temporal boundaries, Greeks in Georgia, minorities after the Soviet Union, ethnographically informed conversation analysis

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.4

This working paper is based on the keynote lecture held at the International Conference “B/ORDERS IN MOTION. Current Challenges and Future Perspectives” on November 15, 2018. The talk starts with a couple of snapshots from developments and conflicts in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2018 in order to conjure up the high stakes of border studies today. The attempt to seal the maritime border performed in particular by the Italian government is then discussed within a global framework and against the background of recent developments in (critical) border studies. The point is made that in order to understand even the most exclusionary border policies and regimes, there is a need to take into consideration a multiplicity of heterogeneous bordering devices which prompt and shape wider transformations of political, social, and economic orders. The talk closes with an outline from this point of view of some of the main challenges for border studies in Europe and beyond emerging from the current conjuncture.

Key words: borders, border controls, border regimes, refugees, migration

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.3

In the aftermath of the First World War, Europe became a laboratory for experimental thinking about order in close interaction with national border discourses. This interaction is analysed under four aspects. Firstly, theoretical concepts are addressed that structure the historical problem area of „patterns of order“, „ideas of order“ and „experiences of order“ and provide conceptual approaches. Secondly, the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919/20 will be analysed as an example of the ideas that made „Versailles“ a place of remembrance of a „new world order“. Thirdly, contemporary controversies about capitalism and democracy are included in this problem area. How compatible did social science experts consider the two Western systems of capitalism and democracy to be after 1918? This is still an open research question for the knowledge systems of the 20th century. Finally, the question is raised as to which narratives about the modern order of civilisation were released by „Versailles“ and in what way they promoted processes of pluralisation or polarisation in Europe.

Key words: Europe, border, border research, order, order patterns, order systems, order thinking, Versailles

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.2

This text is the summary of the central founding document of the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION research centre. At the same time, the working paper marks a central tipping point in the discussion on analysing borders: We argue in favour of understanding borders by no means only as territorial-legal phenomena, which are accordingly examined by genuine spatial science disciplines. Rather, borders should be conceptualised as an interdisciplinary subject that can be located on spatial, temporal, social and cultural levels. Of interest are therefore the various dynamic practices of drawing and dissolving boundaries, which can be seen as constitutive for social and cultural structures of the present and history as a whole. Such a position is in line with the various findings of interdisciplinary border research, such as those found in border(land) studies, research on social and symbolic boundaries and in the analysis of spatial and temporal borders. This bundling of social, cultural, economic and Rechtswissenschaft (Law) analyses of the processes of marking, crossing, dissolving and re-establishing borders leads to an analytical frame of reference and the outline of a research programme centred on the concepts of durability, permeability and liminality.

Headwords: border research, interdisciplinarity, border dimensions, borders and orders, B/Orders in Motion, durabilität, permeabilität, liminalität.

DOI:10.11584/B-ORDERS.1