30.07.2019

Special issue »Migrations and border processes: politics and practices of belonging and exclusion from the 19th to the 21st century« by Margit Fauser, Anne Friedrichs und Levke Harders

Current media images of a »fortress Europe« and the debates concerning refugees and migration linked to that image suggest that migrations and borders are closely connected. This special issue »Migrations and border processes: politics and practices of belonging and exclusion from the 19th to the 21st century« brings together scholars from history, sociology and anthropology to explore cross-border mobility and migration from the 19th to the 21st century explicating the conflictive and fluctuating character of borders.

The historical perspective demonstrates that such bordering processes are not new. However, they have developed new dynamics in different historical phases, from the formation of the modern (nation-)state in the nineteenth century to the creation of the European Union during the second half of the twentieth. The authors of this issue want to determine the relations between transnational and trans-regional migrations and processes of marking and breaking down borders. Understanding ›border‹ as a process, they focus on spatial, political and social factors linked to the controlling, shifting, reinforcing and undermining of borders. This includes a closer look at national and non-governmental players, especially local groups and communities as well as migrants themselves.
Focusing on the historical, local specificity of the complex relations between migration and boundaries will help denaturalize the concept of the border as well as further reflection on the shifting definitions of migration and belonging.

Margit Fauser is a member of the academic staff at the University of Bielefeld, Faculty of Sociology.

Anne Friedrichs is a member of the academic staff at the Leibniz-Institute of European History in Mainz, department »Universalgeschichte«.

Levke Harders is a member of the academic staff at the University of Bielefeld, Department of History.


Margit Fauser, Anne Friedrichs und Levke Harders
Migrations and border processes: politics and practices of belonging and exclusion from the 19th to the 21st century
Journal of Borderlands Studies Volume 35, No. 4, 2019