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Paper short abstract:

I adopt borders as Lense to describe spatial inequality at the interplay of local realities, discursive constructions and policies. Borders are seen as demarcations and as practices of border making that produce the labour market. I discuss feelings of “left in between borders” in Southeast Austria.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses spatial inequality in Austria using the example of a municipality in the south-eastern border region of the country. The positionality of the place will be described as an interplay of local realities, discursive constructions and concrete indicators and policies. At this interface, the paper links discourses on territorial inequality at EU level and in Austria with the local implications of policies in the field of regional development. These levels are juxtaposed with empirical material from an ethnographic study in the South-Burgenland region. The focus here is on the question how territorial inequality is locally perceived, experienced, and negotiated at the interplay of these three dimensions.

The paper adopts the border as Lense to describe experienced forms of marginality. On the one hand, the border is understood as a physical and administrative demarcation between countries and federal states. On the other hand, it is discussed in the sense of Mezzadra and Neilson (2013) as the ways in which practices of bordermaking and maintenance are essential to the production of the local labour market. As such, the locality and its inhabitants are portrayed as being crisscrossed by borders or as feeling been “left in between” various borders.

Mezzadra, S., & Neilson, B. (2013). Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor. Duke University Press.