Author
Abstract
In common sense perceptions of lay people, borders are perceived as essentialist, as things that demarcate inhabitants in one state from those in another, but being defined as state borders is too narrow a perspective on the spatial divisions of people. In sociological theory, borders are considered as social constructions. Borders are socially constructed; however, the kinds of constructions take on different forms. State borders―or political borders―initiate and work in a complex set of relations with other types of borders such as cultural, linguistic and economical. Whilst borders in political theory are considered the outcome of institutional processes, often as a consequence of political power struggles, for example, wars, borders are addressed differently in other theoretical approaches. A dominant paradigm in border studies perceives borders as social constructions created through both institutional practices and everyday social interaction. The social construction of borders takes place in the specific daily life interaction among people. The article focuses on two central concepts in its analytical strategy. First, the concept of unfamiliarity is introduced as a concept that addresses the mental categorizations that are created in interactions across borders. Second, the concept of “borderwork” by Rumford is introduced as an analytic tool in order to identify processes of border constructions in individuals’ daily interaction. The main aim of the article is to establish the relationship between borderwork and unfamiliarity. The analytical frame has been adapted to the specific case of introducing a Euroregion in the Danish--German border region, and it is demonstrated how interplay between unfamiliarity and borderwork may contribute to explain the resistance towards formal cross-border interaction. Furthermore, the case analysis draws attention towards the subtle mechanisms that contribute to maintaining borders as barriers in a formally debordered Europe.
Suggested Citation
Carsten Yndigegn, 2013.
"Reviving Unfamiliarity—The Case of Public Resistance to the Establishment of the Danish--German Euroregion,"
European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 58-74, January.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:21:y:2013:i:1:p:58-74
DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2012.716239
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:21:y:2013:i:1:p:58-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEPS20 .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.