Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Jana Nosková
(Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences)
Ira Spieker (Institute of Saxon History and Culturall Anthropology)
Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich (Victoria University of Wellington)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel will explore the multi-layered processes of de- and unwriting boundaries and demarcations (as political, biological, social or cultural constructs) and show how they are redefined, questioned and reconceptualized in different contexts.
Long Abstract:
Borders and boundaries mark living environments: as physical demarcations, e.g. in the form of national and natural, i.e. geographical borders, but also as political, biological, mental, social or cultural constructs. Borders are not only products of social processes, they also produce them anew. On the one hand, the rules that define them are - like their subject matter - fluid: supposedly fixed codes can be redefined and thus rewritten. On the other hand, there are very precise unwritten rules for seemingly open areas that guide actions and practices and draw invisible dividing lines.
This panel will explore the multi-layered processes of de- and unwriting boundaries and demarcations in the broadest sense of the word, and how they are redefined, questioned and reconceptualized in different disciplines and contexts, both in the present and in the past. Using case studies, we aim to explore this complex process of de-writing/ unwriting different kinds of boundaries and demarcations. We are interested in discourses and materialities, practices and strategies of argumentation and legitimation as well as individual experiences and narratives.
The panel will address the following topics: Changes in the permeability of state borders and their impact on everyday life (e.g. in the context of COVID-19, migration, war), power relations and hierarchical structures (due to political, economic or environmental issues), phantom borders, borders and/or emotions and desires.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
This presentation looks at the refugee-crisis in 2015, the covid-crisis and more recently the fear of seemingly contagious gang criminality and the connections to bio-politics related to the Öresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark.
Paper Abstract:
Before and during the building period of the Öresund bridge in the late 1990´s, the diminished importance of nation-states was predicted. A new Europe of the border regions would emerge and more and more decision-making would take place at a supranational EU or regional level. The new transnational Öresund connection would, both symbolically and practically, be at the forefront of this development and be a growth engine for the entire new border region. On an everyday level the bridge would facilitate croos-border contacts, thus fostering a new regional identity.
The development since then with the refugee crisis in 2015, the introduction of border controls in Europe and the region shows that the regional identity project was slowly emptied of meaning.
This presentation seeks to show, with ethnographic examples from border-crossing experiences at the Bridge in 2000, 2015 and the present, how changes in the notion of borders opens up for a new form biopolitical regime at the bridge.
Paper Short Abstract:
Employing ‘medical border making’ as an analytical term, this paper aims to show how borders permeate the social and cultural lives of the health institutions and shape them as inclusion/exclusion apparatuses.
Paper Abstract:
In Germany, migrants’ healthcare needs and perspectives have received limited attention, so that an institutional absence of migration in the German healthcare system is noticeable. This lack of epistemological and political attention to migrants’ health is to reflect in the design and development of healthcare ecosystem in Germany. Given the risks of encoding existing hierarchies, biases, assumptions and unchecked values into the research, design and development of health institutions, it is crucial to unpack how healthcare and access to it has been institutionalized. Healthcare systems are seen as social, cultural, economic and political bordering mechanisms that centralize (undesired) bodies in their discourses, and this makes it essential to understand not only the institutional logics behind the design of these systems, but also how ethnographic and critical engagement with borders, bodies and health can account for more reflexive, interdisciplinary and careful practices. Drawing on empirical research about the primary care of migrants in Göttingen, this paper proposes the term ‘medical border making’ to refer to the processes in which healthcare system as an institution, alongside other institutions and in contribution with them, represents and (re)produces the national, social and cultural borders to establish and institutionalize a certain interpretation of ‘difference’. Employing this as an analytical term, this paper aims to show how borders permeate the social and cultural lives of the health institutions and shape them as inclusion/exclusion apparatuses.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper offers a real time, albeit preliminary ethnography of the attempt and resistance to re-ordering a country. The ACT party, part of the current coalition government is proposing to re-interpret the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, thus eliminating decades of moving towards a postcolonial society. This process is viewed as an example of a global tendency to cancel contracts and policies aimed at righting wrongs, past and present.
Paper Abstract:
This project introduces the method of real time ethnographic diary keeping as events of historical significance are unfolding. The example used is set in Aotearoa New Zealand, whose national contract between Māori chiefs and the British Crown was signed in 1840. The focus will be on analysing de-colonising strategies of a political party attempting to re-interpret and thus re-order the country’s political landscape of a bi-partisan decolonial project. The paper will survey and analyse both political movements and their strategies: the attempt to unwrite Māori progress towards co-governance, and the unfolding resistance movement led by Māori. Both movements are using a mixture of (unspoken and historical) rule breaking and more traditional political tactics.
Paper Short Abstract:
In the United States, Appalachia and the American South are both regions where dominant, top-down narratives are often imposed on place, especially in relation to environmental belief, activism, disaster, and rurality. These narratives, in turn, have shaped our social imaginaries of, expectations toward, and attitudes about people and place—and who or where we believe deserves wider empathy, advocacy, or aid. This paper examines the permeability and limits of bordered approaches to region and rurality and explores what a re-examination of regional contact zones might offer folklorists as we navigate global climate crisis and increasing environmental disasters.
Paper Abstract:
In the United States, Appalachia and the American South are both regions where dominant, top-down narratives are often imposed on place, especially in relation to environmental belief, activism, disaster, and rurality. These narratives, in turn, have shaped our social imaginaries of, expectations toward, and attitudes about people and place—and who or where we believe deserves wider empathy, advocacy, or aid. Rural places and the people living within them are still often considered isolated and intensely local—disconnected from larger-than-local forces. These constructions create socio-environmental challenges, especially for unincorporated places within rural areas that may be unmapped yet are hosts to environmental exploitation and crises. Environmental sociologists, for example, have noted global polluting industries often intentionally choose unincorporated or marginalized communities to avoid deeper noticing of associated harms or disasters. Both regions also hold an abundance of bottom-up narratives, grassroots movements, complex beliefs, and creative expressions about environmental actions, art, and history. How can studying the overlaps, tensions, and connections beyond constructed regional boundaries help us better examine place-based practices and attitudes toward environmental life? What can a focus on the institutionally defined and imposed border between Appalachia and the South help us understand about other institutionally defined and imposed borders (and the violences that accompany them)? This paper examines the permeability and limits of bordered approaches to region and rurality and explores what a re-examination of regional contact zones might offer folklorists as we navigate global climate crisis and increasing environmental disasters.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper addresses the subject of the process of kinship boundaries reconstruction in Japan. And show how boundaries are reconstructed and how people in particular contexts conduct kinship practices.It helps us understand the fluidity and ambiguity of boundaries, and explain people's practices in the particular context of rural Japan.
Paper Abstract:
The organization called dozoku is a Japanese family union that originated in the 17th century and usually exists in rural and fishing villages. In the past, power relations and hierarchical structures of dozoku generally followed genealogical and economic relations. As an important part of rural Japanese society, dozoku not only satisfies people's spiritual and religious needs, but also have social functions such as agricultural production, farmland distribution, and cooperative work. The boundaries of dozoku, means who is or is not a member of the dozoku was very clear. But with industrialization and urbanization advancing, boundaries began to blur. Sometimes it even disappears, which means dozoku's disband. However, in modern Japan, dozoku attempt to rebuild its boundaries through rituals, common cemeteries, and feasts. In my fieldwork, I found that these attempts are not only gently maintain ancient traditions, but also full of conflicts by changes in social environment. Therefore, I will ask why people in my fieldwork area, where the population decrease is very serious, still choose to reconstruct their dozoku boundaries, even though organization has almost no social function now.
I will explain their practice using the anthropological concept of substance. Through the various examples of conflict and the power structures and changes within dozoku, we can see how its boundaries are being redefined and reproduced in the modern context.
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper explores the multidimensionality and processuality of the identity of Ukrainian forced migrants, who came to Lithuania after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Research is funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT) (No. S-MIP-23-39).
Paper Abstract:
The paper explores the ways in which cultural, social and physical boundaries are narrated in the construction of Ukrainian identity in interviews with Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania. Boundaries in identity construction are understood as processual and constructed between "us" and "them" through the selective and contextual application of certain social and cultural criteria (see Barth 1969, Eriksen 2010, Lawler 2013, etc.). The paper is based on more than twenty in-depth interviews with forced migrants from Ukraine who arrived in Lithuania after February 24, 2022. The analysis of the interviews reveals that narratives of shared history, language, notions of European-ness, and other socio-cultural markers are used to construct divisions and unities among Ukrainians as well as with outsiders. The paper examines how socio-cultural boundaries are (re)constructed in the context of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, as reflected by research participants, and what notions of Ukrainian-ness are constructed in these narratives; whether and how physical borders interrelate with cultural and social borders. I will argue that the narratives reveal the construction of Ukrainian-ness as inclusive, and at the same time, certain aspects of Ukrainian identity (e.g. the Ukrainian language) are seen as becoming more important in the construction of national identity in the context of war. The research was conducted within the framework of the collaborative research project "Ethnic, national and transnational identities and geopolitical attitudes of third-country nationals in Lithuania in the context of the war in Ukraine" funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (LMTLT) in 2023-2026 (No. S-MIP-23-39).
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines the ways in which Romanian migrants represent themselves and how their image is represented in public discourse in Romania. The following questions will be addressed in the paper: Which aspects of migrants' experiences are absent from the Romanian discourse? Which narratives about Romanian migrants are absent from the public discourse?
Paper Abstract:
The author's objective is to examine how the Romanian migrant self-represents and how his/her image is represented in public discourse in Romania. This investigation is based on the premise that anthropologists can gain insight into the most intimate and profound emotions of their respondents when recording their life stories. The image of the Romanian migrant has undergone a series of transformations, oscillating between pride and shame and encompassing a range of gray areas. This image has shifted and evolved over time, reflecting a complex and nuanced portrayal of the migrant experience. An ambivalent image in which Romanian migrants continue to search for their identity.
This paper analyses the image of the Romanian migrant as it emerges from the public discourse and is reflected in a collection of life story interviews. The author conducted the interviews between 2014-2024. They were collected and contextualized with participant observations. The interviews were conducted with different members of transnational families. The paper will also reflect on the evolution of the discourse on migration in Romania, particularly in terms of the changing emotional dimensions associated with migration across different historical periods. It will address the following questions: What aspects of migrants' experiences are not discussed in the Romanian discourse? What narratives about Romanian migrants are absent from the public discourse?
Paper Short Abstract:
The paper is focused on constructing, deconstructing, and redefining social and cultural boundaries through the case of a community in North Macedonia, existing outside current identity frameworks such as ethnicity or nationality, and navigating this challenge within contemporary political, economic, and social developments in national and transnational contexts.
Paper Abstract:
The paper will discuss how the community members understand, construct, and define the group's social and cultural boundaries, and how cultural differences and boundaries, as well as the social construction of these boundaries, shape their identity. It will reflect on a case study focusing on a community of Slavic-speaking Muslims in a larger village in North Macedonia, which has been based on ethnographic field research. How is this image being redefined by the Macedonian majority? However, is contact with the majority the key factor shaping the contemporary life of this group, considering that most male residents work abroad, and the community relies heavily on remittances? Moreover, the village has been undergoing rapid depopulation over the past 20 years due to economic migration. Could transnational relationships and connections, therefore, hold greater relevance in understanding their current dynamics? And how do they shape the boundaries of the group?
The discussion will encompass the perception of economic migration and transnational connections, the perspective of the majority population, relationships with non-Muslim and Muslim communities in the region, and the impact of political changes, considering the current dimensions of Orientalism, Balkanism, and Occidentalism.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper discusses strategies for dealing with "peripherality" in the narratives of the inhabitants of the Czech-Slovak borderlands as a means of identity formation, (re-)defining and (re-)conceptualizing of the border.
Paper Abstract:
In 1993, Czechoslovakia broke up and two separate states, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, were created, along with new state borders. The new geopolitical situation, which went hand in hand with the post-socialist transformation, brought many changes to the everyday life of the inhabitants of the Czech-Slovak borderlands. In the last 30 years, they have had to react to the closing and opening of borders or to their new position on the "periphery" of the new nation states.
Historically, the Czech-Slovak borderlands can be considered an example of “integrated borderlands”. However, borders are dynamic, their presence and meaning are changing and reactivating depending on political, security or economic factors that influence the processes of debordering and rebordering.
In recent years, scholars have conceptualized borders as discourses and practices that configure understandings of place and communities. In this context, I am interested in how the inhabitants of the Czech-Slovak borderlands cope with their position on the "periphery".
In this paper I draw on oral history interviews conducted in 2023-2024 with residents living in the Czech-Slovak borderlands. I am interested in what narrative strategies are chosen by the interviewees to overcome "peripherality", I trace the narrative construction of ambivalent and multilayered identities of the inhabitants of this region. I analyse how specific local/regional or cross-border identities are constructed in the narratives, how events from the past are used to legitimise, shape or undermine the borders. I see these processes as a source of resilience and empowerment for local actors.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper presents modern British Muslims identities discourse, based on statistics, academics, media and author`s field materials 2012-2024 in Northern England, London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc. The work describes the role of city structures and districts, co-interpretation of borders, forming and transforming cross-border identity, e.g. by means of author`s visual anthropological methods.
Paper Abstract:
This paper presents modern British Muslims identities discourse, based on statistics, academics, media and author`s field materials 2012-2024 in Northern England, London, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc. The work describes the role of city structures and districts, co-interpretation of borders, forming and transforming cross-border identity, e.g. by means of author`s visual anthropological methods.
We are talking about specific communication places: mosque (territory for community socialization, mobilization and public discussions): sports club, stadium, school (territories of external communication and competition); home as family socialization, local heritage; market as a space for familiarization). and we are talking about 3 types of communications, expressed in urban quarters allegory: 1. “ghettos” presenting (not preserving) a micro version of the world that its inhabitants once left; 2. quarters of a cosmopolitan, commercial, literally multicultural order; 3. “quarters” that do not exist as such, a territory that sometimes remains an idea, a virtual space enclosed within the central and bohemian districts. The paper also touches upon the problem of "visibility" and role of contemporary British-Islamic entertainment culture in the development of this identities. We can talk here about co-interpretation of “active borders” – joint interpretation of the meanings of history/space/memory both on the “hard” and “soft” borderlands. Young Muslims of the so called “2-3 generations” deal with two cultural worlds of their own families and cultural communities, as well as their peers, schools and society at large. Thus, “intercultural worlds”, including “worlds of memory”, can turn out to be not only “bicultural”, but much more multi-layered.