EastBordNet's aims and objectives for COST Action IS0803
EastBordNet began in 2006 as a loose network of researchers, scholars and activists across Europe and beyond, who have an interest in borders, gender, sexuality and/or money, particularly as these relate to current chances in the eastern peripheries of Europe. It was first sponsored by Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, CRESC, and the British Academy, who helped to pay for a workshop where researchers from across the region came together to discuss their research interests.
As a result of that meeting, funding was sought from COST to continue to build a network of researchers to work on these issues, and this application succeeded in the summer of 2008. The EastBordNet project thus grew into the research network COST IS0803, and was officially launched with a management committee meeting in Brussels in January 2009.
Researchers from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom are now participating in the project. In addition, Russia joined us in July 2009 as a non-COST member state. COST Action IS0803 are hosting a series of Work Groups and Workshops throughout 2009, and we are also planning two major conferences.
COST Action IS0803: Remaking Eastern Borders in Europe: A Network Exploring Social, Moral and Material Relocations of Europe's Eastern Peripheries
The main objective of this project is to develop a new multi-disciplinary approach to study the process of remaking borders in the eastern periphery of Europe, combining research on everyday social, moral and material aspects of this, and bringing together expertise in both empirical and conceptual research from across the whole region.
The significance of the eastern borders of Europe is currently changing. Through a focus on the informal, everyday aspects of this, the Action draws together existing knowledge and develops new understandings of the combined social, moral and material elements of how these borders are experienced and thought about. Its aim is to develop a new approach for studying changes in the Eastern periphery of Europe, through: (a) exploring the process through which borders themselves become visible and meaningful (or disappear), rather than take borders for granted and then study their effects; (b) a simultaneous focus on what borders separate and what they bring together; (c) a focus on 'remaking borders,' which means studying understandings of possible futures as well as the past; (d) a focus on money, gender and sexuality, which in both empirical and conceptual terms brings together material, political, social and moral aspects of border-making and allows the study of 'border transgressions.' Unusually, this Action draws together researchers focusing on the north-east (Baltics and environs) to the south-east (Balkans and environs); and it also combines empirical with conceptual specialists to tackle the complexities of what happens in everyday, informal terms around border regions during periods of transformation.
Keywords: Remaking Borders, North-Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, Gender and Sexuality, Money, Time