Advances in European Borderlands Studies

Cover -- Borderlands Studies at the Turn of the Tide. An Introduction -- Structure of the Volume -- Acknowledgments -- Part I: Theoretical and methodological perspectives in borderlands studies -- Boundary and borderland in traditional and new sociological paradigms -- Introduction -- Boundaries and borderlands - Ambiguity of the term and three theoretical paradigms -- Border and borderland as a social performance -- Concluding remarks -- Three perspectives in borderland research. How borderland studies could exploit its potential -- Introduction -- Why borderland research? -- Borderlands as cases -- Borderlands as specific regions -- Borderlands as quasi-experimental settings -- Conclusions -- Benefits of borderland sociology -- Complex borders: Analytical problems and heuristics -- Introduction -- An interdisciplinary heuristic of multidimensional borders -- Borders and orders -- Concluding remarks -- Bordering, borderscapes, imaginaries: From constructivist to post-structural perspectives -- Introduction -- The Bordering approach: getting borders back into everyday life -- The Borderscapes approach: exploring the multiplicity of borders -- Imaginaries: Post-structural approximations -- Imaginaries in action: Polish-German Twin cities -- Empirical setting and methodology -- Imaginaries as elements of everyday re-politicising: empirical evidence -- Conclusion: What effects do imaginaries have on a borderscape? -- Borderland as a dependent area -- Introduction -- Borderlands - directions of dependence -- Political parties as a form of initiative for national minorities in borderland -- Conclusions -- Quo vadis borderlands studies? The transformation of European borders and new research perspectives -- Part II: Geopolitics and management of borders -- Geostrategies of the European Union - looking for a new approach in defining EUropean borders