"They're Worse Off Than Us"- The Social Construction of European Space and Boundaries in the German/Polish Twin-City Guben-Gubin

Bibliographic Data

ID7802215
AuthorsJorg Durrschmidt (Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume9
Issue2
Pages123-150
Publication date2002-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIdentities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1070-289X • E-ISSN: 1547-3384
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10702890212206
OpenAlexW1965030618
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited25

In the context of globalization and European integration, the interplay between social boundaries and territorially defined political borders becomes more complex in that they become increasingly delinked. In some regional settings, this might imply that while the political border is softened, the socio-cultural closure between the border communities becomes even tighter. This article investigates this issue in relation to the German-Polish border region. Looking at the German-Polish twin-city, Guben-Gubin, the first section describes the ways in which cultural closure materializes. Emphasis is given to the link between cultural closure and an increasing alienation of local people from the Europeanized symbolic cross-border politics pursued by the local and regional political elite(s). The second section, however, argues that the "cultural closure" thesis is perhaps too simplistic to grasp the complexity of cross-border interaction of local people. Investigating the cross-border strategies of three milieux, the article concludes that what can be found in a setting like Guben-Gubin is in fact a complex configuration of openings and closures at various spatial and symbolic levels, sometimes taking place simultaneously in one and the same milieu

Alienation · Closure (psychology · Context (archaeology · Economic geography · Elite · Geography · German · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · Law · Local Governance and Planning · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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