EUBORDERSCAPES (Bordering, Political Landscapes and Social Arenas: Potentials and Challenges of Evolving Border Concepts in a post-Cold War World) is a large-scale international research project that investigates and interprets conceptual change in the study of borders, in relation to the fundamental social, economic, cultural and geopolitical transformations that have taken place in the past decades. The research focuses not only on the more general level of conceptual change, but it also attempts to draw a comparison between different conceptualisations of state borders (in terms of their political, social, cultural and symbolic significance) and to describe how they resonate in concrete contexts at the level of everyday life.
EUBORDERSCAPES studies the evolving concepts of borders in two ways: 1) as an important reflection of political, social and cultural change and 2) as an indicator of possible responses to this change. Drawing from various sources, such as key academic debates, political discourses, ethnographic research, media representations and shifting cultural understandings of the construction of national borders, the project aims to shed light on tensions between national understandings in terms of demarcations based on ethnicity, citizenship, language and socio-cultural characteristics; and broader supranational/transnational understandings which address borders as areas of contact between civilisations, religious and cultural spheres. In doing so, the project also tries to illuminate the consequences of restrictive and securitised border regimes for interstate and intercultural dialogue. This approach emphasizes the social significance and subjectivities of state borders while critically interrogating "objective" categories of state territoriality and international relations.
The project consortium agreement includes 22 partner institutions from 17 different states, including several non-EU countries, whereby the coordinator of the project is the University of Eastern Finland. The EUBORDERSCAPES project (Grant Agreement No. 290775) is funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7-SSH-2011-1), Area 4.2.1 The evolving concept of borders, and will run for four years (from 1st June 2012 until 31st May 2016). The following scholars are involved in this project on behalf of CAS:
Senior researchers:
- Associate Prof. Diana Mishkova
- Associate Prof. Anna Krasteva
Junior researchers:
- Ivana Trkulja
- Tonka Kostadinova
- Ildiko Otova
- Evelina Staykova
- Vanya Ivanova
- Denitza Kamenova
For more information on the project, please visit http://www.euborderscapes.eu
