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Phantom Borders in Eastern Europe: A New Concept for Regional Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2019

Béatrice von Hirschhausen ,
Hannes Grandits ,
Claudia Kraft ,
Dietmar Müller  and
Thomas Serrier
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Abstract

This paper is programmatic: it defines the concept of “phantom borders” and describes its heuristic potential. The proposed approach positions itself between structuralist methodologies that postulate stable social and cultural regional structures and deconstructive viewpoints that reject the former, while focusing on the discursive dimension of regions. The paper takes this tension as its point of departure. Viewed from a situational perspective, phantom borders are neither to be understood as immutable structures nor as purely discursive constructions, but rather as an outcome of the interaction between three interwoven levels, which are simultaneously: 1) imagined in mental maps and discourses, 2) experienced and perceived by the respective actors, and 3) shaped by everyday practices and continuously updated and implemented. Phantom borders are context sensitive. We argue that the topic of phantom borders is not only relevant for research on eastern Europe, but also for research in “new area studies” in general.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , Summer 2019 , pp. 368 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2019 

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Footnotes

We thank the editor, Harriet L. Murav, for in-depth suggestions and the efficient handling of the manuscript, and the anonymous referees for very constructive and valuable suggestions; the usual disclaimer applies.

References

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2. In addition to the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin, the Chair of South-East European History at Humboldt-University in Berlin, the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin, and the Chair of East European History at Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, several other research institutions have participated in the project in Germany (European University Viadrina Frankfurt/Oder, Siegen University, Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe Leipzig (GWZO), Freie Universität Berlin, Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin); in central and southeastern Europe (Silesian Institute in Opole, University of Zagreb, University of Iaşi); and in other European countries (CERCEC/Paris, CETOBAC/Paris, University of Basel, Switzerland).

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24. Ibid., 32.

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26. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, 1994).

27. Ibid., 39.

28. Ibid., 38.

29. Ibid., 34.

30. Ibid., 33.

31. Ibid., 38.

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38. On the different discourses and their emotionalization, see e.g. Maruška Svašek, Postsocialism: Politics and Emotions in Central and Eastern Europe (New York, 2006).

39. Wolfgang Aschauer, “Ceci n’est pas la Hongrie—Grenzen in Realität und Imagination am Beispiel Ungarns,” (paper presented at the symposium of the scientific committee of the Southeast Europe Association on the topic “Südosteuropa und die alten/neuen Grenzen. Ein analytischer Blick zurück im Jahr 25 nach der Wende,” Berlin, February 28, 2014).

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45. Martina Löw, Raumsoziologie (Frankfurt/Main, 2001), 224.

46. Martina Löw’s relational conception of space builds on the dualistic conception of structure in Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge, Eng., 1984). A similar concept is also found in French geography, see Augustin Berque, “Paysage-empreinte, paysage-matrice: éléments de problématique pour une géographie culturelle,” Espace géographique 13, no. 1 (1984): 33–34; and Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 37.

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50. Among the works on path dependency we may refer to Paul Pierson, “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics,” The American Political Science Review 94, no. 2 (Jun 2000): 251–67; Ian Greener, “The Potential of Path Dependence in Political Studies,” Politics 25, no. 1 (2005 ): 62–72; Keith Darden and Anna Grzymala-Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse,” World Politics 59, no. 1 (Oct. 2006): 83–115; Sascha O. Becker et al., “The Empire is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy,” The Economic Journal 126, no. 590 (February 2016): 40–74; Leonid Peisakhin, “Cultural Legacies: Persistence and Transmission,” in Norman Schofield and Gonzalo Caballero, eds., The Political Economy of Governance: Institutions, Political Performance and Elections (Cham, 2015), 21–39.

51. Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton, 2004), 79–102.

52. Pierson, 79.

53. Koselleck, Futures Past, 255–75.

54. On the origin of area studies in the context of the Cold War, see Szanton, David L., ed., The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines (Berkeley, 2004)Google Scholar; Engerman, David C., Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts (Oxford, 2009)Google Scholar. Recent research historicizes the close linkage between area studies and non-scientific interests as part of a scholarly history of the Cold War. See Solovey, Mark and Cravens, Hamilton, eds., Cold War Social Science: Knowledge Production, Liberal Democracy, and Human Nature (New York, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erickson, Paul, Klein, Judy L., Daston, Lorraine, Lemov, Rebecca, Sturm, Thomas and Gordin, Michael D., How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind: The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality (Chicago, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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59. This was the criticism that was already made in the early 1990s about east European Studies, see Stefan Creuzberger et al, “Osteuropaforschung im Umbruch: Motive, Hintergründe und Verlauf einer Fachdebatte in Deutschland,” in Stefan Creuzberger et al., 15.

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