Among the tremendous changes affecting Europe in recent decades, those concerning political frontiers have been some of the most significant. International borders are being opened in some regions while being redefined or reinforced in others. The social relationships of those living in these borderland regions are also changing fundamentally. This volume investigates, from a local, ground-up perspective, what is happening at some of these border encounters: face-to-face interactions and relations of compliance and confrontation, where people are bargaining, exchanging goods and information, and maneuvering beyond state boundaries. Anthropological case studies from a number of European borderlands shed light on the questions of how, and to what extent, the border context influences the changing interactions and social relationships between people at a political frontier.

Among the tremendous changes affecting Europe in recent decades, those concerning political frontiers have been some of the most significant. International borders are being opened in some regions while being redefined or reinforced in others. The social relationships of those living in these borderland regions are also changing fundamentally. This volume investigates, from a local, ground-up perspective, what is happening at some of these border encounters: face-to-face interactions and relations of compliance and confrontation, where people are bargaining, exchanging goods and information, and maneuvering beyond state boundaries. Anthropological case studies from a number of European borderlands shed light on the questions of how, and to what extent, the border context influences the changing interactions and social relationships between people at a political frontier.

Introduction: Border Encounters – Asymmetry and Proximity at Europe’s Frontiers
Jutta Lauth Bacas and William Kavanagh

PART I: OPENING BORDERS

Chapter 1. Consumer Rites: the Politics of Consumption in a Re-Unified Germany
Daphne Berdahl

Chapter 2. Cross-Border Relations and Regional Identity on the Polish-German Border
Robert Parkin

Chapter 3. Anti-Nuclear Activism at the Czech-Austrian Border
Birgit Müller

Chapter 4. Powerful Documents: Passports, Passages and Dilemmas of Identification on the Georgian – Turkish Border
Mathijs Pelkmans

Chapter 5. Proximity and Asymmetry on the Portuguese – Spanish Border
William Kavanagh

PART II: STRENGTHENING BORDERS

Chapter 6. Asymmetries of Gender and Generation on a Post-Soviet Borderland
Laura Assmuth

Chapter 7. ‘We are all tourists’: Enduring Social Relations and Changing Proximities and Asymmetries at the Romanian-Serbian Border in Different Mobility Regimes
Cosmin Radu

Chapter 8. ‘We used to be one country’: Rural Transformations, Economic Asymmetries and National Identities in the Ukrainian-Russian Borderlands
Tatiana Zhurzhenko

PART III: CROSSING FORBIDDEN BORDERS

Chapter 9. Under One Roof: Six Years of Border Crossings in Cyprus
Lisa Dikomitis

Chapter 10. The Birth of a Border: Policing by Charity on the Italian Maritime Edge
Maurizio Albahari

Chapter 11. Managing Proximity and Asymmetry in Border Encounters: The Reception of Undocumented Migrants on a Greek Border Island
Jutta Lauth Bacas

Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index