Inverting the Telescope on Borders that Matter: Conversations in Café Europa

Dorte Jagetic Andersen; Olivier Thomas Kramsch; Marie Sandberg

Inverting the Telescope on Borders that Matter: Conversations in Café Europa

Dorte Jagetic Andersen, Olivier Thomas Kramsch, Marie Sandberg

Saxo-Instituttet - Arkæologi, Etnologi, Historie og Græsk og Latin

13 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

This article develops a new critical comparative lens for the study of European borders, which displays bordering processes less as territorialized state-spaces than spatio-temporal assemblages. Taking the multiplicity and historicity of European borders into account while simultaneously allowing for their continuous re-envisioning through extra-territorial and post-colonial enframings of Europe, the standard horizontal gaze of border studies, it is argued, is dislocated. 'Inverting the telescope' on border studies thus enables a productive space of tension – named Café Europa – in which the negotiations of geopolitical as well as everyday life border practices find expression and take place. Inside this tension of multiple realities and politics, border theory is challenged and charged. It is the aim of the article to invite a furthering of ontological border politics in and across such conversations on borders that matter.

Keywords: border studies, border theory, new comparativism, ontological politics, multiplicity, extra-territoriality/deterritorialisation

Originalsprog	Engelsk
Artikelnummer	Volume 23, Issue 4
Tidsskrift	Journal of Contemporary European Studies (Print Edition)
Sider (fra-til)	459-476
Antal sider	17
ISSN	1478-2804
Status	Udgivet - 2 okt. 2015

Emneord

Det Humanistiske Fakultet

Citationsformater

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abstract = "Proposing an {\textquoteleft}inverted telescope{\textquoteright} for border studies, we problematized existing calls to {\textquoteleft}see like a border{\textquoteright}, arguing that such moves miss an opportunity to define what is properly political about b/ordering space. Inverting the telescope on borders that matter reveals an ontologically grounded politics of bordering, one that illuminates an inherent multiplicity to borders that can best be captured in those contact zones that resist our conventional understanding of where European borders lie. Focusing on localized bordering practices that contest demarcation and re-appropriation within the logics of global, European and state-centered geopolitical designs, we canvas the ontological politics emerging from the furnace of three spatio-temporal European horizons: the Istrian peninsula connecting Slovenia and Croatia; the historical, path-dependent trajectory of a seasonal labor force crossing Polish and Danish borders; and a {\textquoteleft}European{\textquoteright} border located deep in Amazon{\'i}a. We name the space produced by the tensions in each of these theaters Caf{\'e} Europa, designating both a material location of border praxis as well as a collective intellectual project in which the authors are themselves self-reflexively implicated.",

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AU - Andersen, Dorte Jagetic

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AU - Sandberg, Marie

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N2 - Proposing an ‘inverted telescope’ for border studies, we problematized existing calls to ‘see like a border’, arguing that such moves miss an opportunity to define what is properly political about b/ordering space. Inverting the telescope on borders that matter reveals an ontologically grounded politics of bordering, one that illuminates an inherent multiplicity to borders that can best be captured in those contact zones that resist our conventional understanding of where European borders lie. Focusing on localized bordering practices that contest demarcation and re-appropriation within the logics of global, European and state-centered geopolitical designs, we canvas the ontological politics emerging from the furnace of three spatio-temporal European horizons: the Istrian peninsula connecting Slovenia and Croatia; the historical, path-dependent trajectory of a seasonal labor force crossing Polish and Danish borders; and a ‘European’ border located deep in Amazonía. We name the space produced by the tensions in each of these theaters Café Europa, designating both a material location of border praxis as well as a collective intellectual project in which the authors are themselves self-reflexively implicated.

AB - Proposing an ‘inverted telescope’ for border studies, we problematized existing calls to ‘see like a border’, arguing that such moves miss an opportunity to define what is properly political about b/ordering space. Inverting the telescope on borders that matter reveals an ontologically grounded politics of bordering, one that illuminates an inherent multiplicity to borders that can best be captured in those contact zones that resist our conventional understanding of where European borders lie. Focusing on localized bordering practices that contest demarcation and re-appropriation within the logics of global, European and state-centered geopolitical designs, we canvas the ontological politics emerging from the furnace of three spatio-temporal European horizons: the Istrian peninsula connecting Slovenia and Croatia; the historical, path-dependent trajectory of a seasonal labor force crossing Polish and Danish borders; and a ‘European’ border located deep in Amazonía. We name the space produced by the tensions in each of these theaters Café Europa, designating both a material location of border praxis as well as a collective intellectual project in which the authors are themselves self-reflexively implicated.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

M3 - Journal article

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JO - Journal of Contemporary European Studies

JF - Journal of Contemporary European Studies

M1 - Volume 23, Issue 4

ER -

Inverting the Telescope on Borders that Matter: Conversations in Café Europa

Abstract

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