COST Action IS0803 2009, Work Group 3
Differences and Inequalities
Ljubljana, 8-9 May 2009
Convenor: Irena Šumi
Institut za Narodnostna Vprasanja /
Institute for Ethnic Studies, Erjavceva 26,
1000 Ljubljana. Slovenia
irena.sumi@guest.arnes.si
The Summary Report on this meeting is now available here.
Working papers from WG3 (Differences and Inequalities) are now available here.
Borders as Histories Condensed: The Central European Rim
With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following WWI, a process of creating new international borders, and redefining and/or eliminating the old ones, was set in motion, a process that is still unfolding in our day. As the outer border of the EU is progressively moving south- and eastwards to encompass the ex-Imperial territories and their historic neighbours, what is left inside the expanding EU borders is a legacy of diverse human and political situations still crucially defined by a plethora of historic bordering phenomena whose common trait is a history of differences and inequalities.
While the internal EU borders are stripped of their functioning as the outer geopolitical perimeters of national economies and free movement of personnel and goods in general, structures of division and difference persist when it comes to political systems, minority populations, language barriers etc. Deeply embedded in the respective national legal systems and international treaties that still define bi- and multilateral international relations in these areas within the EU, these differences and precariously balanced historic disproportions and inequalities are subject to, but extremely rare, attempts at innovative or creative analytical, let alone legal or political measures aiming at surpassing the differences. The concept of ‘euroregions’ left intact precisely the problem of legal and political bridging of the historic cross-border gaps; the cross-border minority situations remain an inflammable issue throughout EU, and perhaps especially so at its prospectively expanding south-eastern peripheries; the language barriers are scarcely addressed in ways potentially less expensive, and more efficient and viable, than by ever expanding the inventory of official EU languages.
The questions to pose at this first WG3 meeting therefore are:
• What are the relations between current outer EU borders and the internal EU borders? How are these situations interdependent?
• Is the current policy and strategy of dismantling the internal EU borders (the
Schengen regime) sufficient in view of unresolved bordering situations along these internal borders? What can be done in terms of supplementing the Schengen matrix in order to “de- borderise” the internal EU borders?
• What innovative legal, political and civil initiatives and measures can be envisioned in order to surpass and pacify the lingering historic inequalities along the internal EU borders that would, at the same time, profitably affect further EU southeast expansion?
Participant: Dr Daniele Del Bianco
ISIG, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di Gorizia
Institute of International Sociology Gorizia
Italy
Email: delbianco@isig.it
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
“De-borderising” internal EU borders: a cross-border welfare systems approach
The Italian-Slovenian border area is characterized by a relatively higher level of cross-border cooperation (CBC) than other Central European border areas. Dating back to the very establishment of the border between Italy and Slovenia, CBC has now gained a substantial momentum, especially considering the take-up rate of EU funded CBC programs. However, differently from many other Central European border areas, this region has failed to adopt a Euroregional structure enhancing co-ordination of CBC actions and developing further CBC instances. Reasons for this could be traced to a number of legal and political differences in CB situations despite the adhesion of both countries to the Schengen treaty. Parallel to that, propensity to CBC appears to be confined only to a restricted number of specific actors whilst civil society as whole does not seem sufficiently involved in this process nor aware of the opportunities raised by activated CBC projects. (The very idea of Euroregion is often ignored or miss-interpreted). Starting from empirical data on the CB third sector and the review of European instances of CB welfare systems, it is argued that a Euroregion, coordinating welfare services, enables citizens to exercise their solidarity rights in a CB fashion. This, in turn, would stimulate both cognitive and normative legitimization of the border area and its institutions which is held being a necessary condition to overcome legal/political differences.
Participant: Dr Natasa Gregoric Bon
Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Slovenia
Email: ngregoric@zrc-sazu.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Constructing Europeaness in Himara, southern Albania
In the past few years the discourses of ‘Europe’ and the European Union began to be shaped in the media and among general public life in postcommunist Albania. These discourses are also present among the inhabitants of Himara in southern Albania, who are according to the legal policies in Greece considered to be part of Greek ‘co-ethnicity’ while they are defined as Albanian citizens according to the legal policies in Albania. The status of Greek co-ethnicity allows them to apply for the
Special Identity Cards which allow them a social and health security besides ‘free’ crossing of the Albanian-Greek and other EU borders (inside Schengen regime), which are hardly passable for majority of Albanian citizens. In addressing the minority issue I will focus on the ways in which people of Himara remap their locatedness and relate it to Greece and/or EU through reconstruction of history and their continuous movements and migrations to and from Greece. While on the one hand they redefine the outer EU borders and constitute them as internal ones, on the other hand they reconstruct the internal boundaries and constitute them as the outer ones. In this process they redefine their municipality as a ‘distinct region’ which they strive to locate to Europe.
Participant: Prof Damir Josipovic
Director
Institute for Ethnic Studies
Slovenia
Email: damir.josipovic@guest.arnes.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
I would like to discuss the question on lingering differences in legal/political cross-border situations in the context of bordering process between Slovenia and Croatia, and consequently other southeast-European countries.
Participant: Dr Tomas Ka?erauskas
Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
Lithuania
Email: tomas.kacerauskas@hi.vgtu.lt
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Central Europe as an imagined region The Central European rim has been defined both as belonging to Europe and as being different. Central Europe has become an area of fight for European values including liberalism, democracy, Christianity. On the one hand Central Europe has been a region in pursuit for ages. On the other hand this region has been formed under influence of different historical events and visions. In this way Central Europe instead of geographical region has become a metaphorical and imagined one to be followed by some nations. The identity of Central Europe is based both on the contraposition to East Europe and West Europe. In this way Central Europe is “antiEurope” (G. Delanty), i.e. a factor of very Europe’s becoming in a spiritual fight. The paper is based on the examples from Great Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) as a multicultural political body in the centre of cultural fight between West Europe and East Europe. Today GDL is actual at least for four European nations searching in this historical-political body their “imagined identities” (B. Anderson) in Europe.
Participant: Dr Duška Kneževi? Ho?evar
Sociomedical Institute SRC SASA
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Slovenia
Email: duska@zrc-sazu.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The questions addressed:
What are the relations between current outer EU borders and the internal EU borders? How are these situations interdependent? What innovative legal, political and civil initiatives and measures can be envisioned in order to surpass and pacify the lingering historic inequalities along the internal EU borders that would, at the same time, profitably affect further EU southeast expansion?
The situation addressed: Lingering differences in legal/political cross-border situations. A discussion designed by Duška Kneževi? Ho?evar: The author introduces the critical discussion on The Cross-border Cooperation Operational Programme Slovenia-Croatia 2007-2013 (OP), development programme co-financed by the EU within the Instrument of Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA). IPA is a new legal and financial instrument of the EU, which is applicable to Candidate Countries (Croatia in this case) and Potential Candidate Countries as well as to the Member States (Slovenia), which share a cross-border programme with these countries. The OP contains a development strategy and its implementation arrangements for the eligible area comprising comparable units (NUTS regions) along the Slovenian-Croatian border.
The discussion will revolve around the above questions and situation in general, focusing on the eligible area of comparable units in particular. Among other things, the author questions the size of comparable units on the basis of some major findings from her long-term fieldwork (since the 1992) along the Slovenian-Croatian border. The special attention will be given to the OP SWOT analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the border region in order to design some ideas about surpassing the legacy of differences and inequalities between the states in the joint project design with the cross-border partners in this particular OP.
Participant: Ms AijaLulle
Centre for Science and Technology Studies
Latvian Academy of science.
Latvia
Email: aija@lza.lv; aija.lulle@lu.lv
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Changes of political regimes and physical borders in twentieth century accompanied with outward and inward migration flows have formed multilayered social reality in nowadays Latvia, a small EU member state in the north-east periphery.
Once independent country between two World wars, Latvia was annexed after the Second World War and became a part of the Soviet Union. Inward migration was mainly from Slavic republics -- Soviet Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. It changed ethnic proportions and usage of languages in Latvia dramatically. After the country regained its independence, it established Latvian language as the only state language, shaping also power relationships within its sociolinguistic communities. After Latvia joined the EU in May, 2004, it experienced and impressive economic growth with average 10 % on annual basis, rapidly rising salaries and both outward migration of Latvia’s inhabitants searching jobs in other EU countries and small scale inward mobility (capital – relocation related) from various countries and labour migration, including from the post- Soviet republics. Although immigration regime is strict in Latvia and official migration data do show that, the total number of foreigners compared to number of inhabitants in Latvia is small – approximately 2% of the number of inhabitants, biggest numbers of immigrants in Latvia come from former Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries taking into account geographical proximity and language skills. Majority of people from former CIS countries do not have a language barrier; they can live and work in Latvia using knowledge of Russian language. Employers are also trying to facilitate immigration from former CIS countries as knowledge of Russian language helps to communicate with potential workers. The current situation with former Soviet borders and existing EU borders with free flow of capital and workforce create complex patterns of mobility and new ambivalent attitudes towards ethnic issues, mobility, belonging to cultural, linguistic (Latvian-Russian-English) and politically geographicrealities. I would like to address the issues of language usage, to draw attention on structure and agency of core-periphery constructions and construction of cultural and symbolic borders in nowadays Latvia and thus to provide comparative evidences from the EU north-east periphery.
Participant: Dr Anaïs Marin
Collegium for Advanced Studies
University of Helsinki
Finland
Email: anais.marin@helsinki.fi
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Overcoming obstacles to cross-border cooperation at Belarus’ Western borders: a comparative study from five Euroregions
Among the post-Soviet countries which EU Neighbourhood policies aim to turn into a “ring of friends”, Belarus is probably the most isolated and impermeable to change. Centralisation and state control in Belarus leave nearly no room to civil society for self-development, least of all at cross-border level with neighbouring Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian local authorities. However, 4 of Belarus 5 border regions are involved in cross-border cooperation arrangements referred to as Euroregions, covering almost 80% of the State’s land border, except for a section with Russia. In addressing this paradox, this contribution diagnose the many legal, institutional and diplomatic obstacles that constraint and limit cross-border cooperation (eg. conflicts over Polish and Lithuanian minorities in Western Belarus), pointing also to local factors that favour interactions from the grass-roots (eg. the existence of border waters). It argues that Euroregions could be incubators and relevant spaces for action oriented towards democratisation and Europeanisation, should Belarus be fully integrated into the Council of Europe. The demonstration rests on field material (interviews) and insights from studies of comparable contexts in the EU’s Eastern borderland (Euregio Karelia), with the objective of suggesting an agenda for further empirical research and drafting a “Wiki entry” on Belarusian
Euroregions.
Participant: Ms Tihana Rubic
Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Croatia
Email: trubic@ffzg.hr
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
I would like to address the particular aspect of the bordering issue, linked to the formal labor market. On the one hand, borders could be discussed as a set of diverse political, economic, and practical relations, international obstacles and constraints, international openness or closeness of boarders, etc. All these significantly influence labor market. The border issues could be thus associated with phenomena such as: labor migrations, current (inner and outer EU post socialist countries’) labour and migration policies, etc. On the other hand, additional aspects of border problematic, linked to labor markets, are: social and cognitive borders and bordering, both highly determined by political and economic determinates. Anthropological research tends to engage both with empirical and symbolical relationship between current inner and outer EU post socialist countries, on a basis of a formal labour market possibilities and challenges, in processes such as post industrialisation (Bell 1973; Myles 1990) and deindustrialisation (Dunn 2004). How, due to diminished and restructured formal labour market, borders (social, political, economic, etc.) are manifesting in and shaping people’s everyday realities, identities, hopes, and self-confirmations? The bordering issues, if related to labour markets, should be thus examined both from political and economic (policy planning, European and national economies), and social and cognitive (creating strategies, shaping and rationalizing the projection of future by individuals) perspective.
Participant: Prof Irena Saleniece
Department of History, Faculty of Humanities
Daugavpils University
Latvia
Email: irena.saleniece@apollo.lv; irena.saleniece@du.lv
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The census data of the 20th century show the contradictory tendencies in the dynamics of ethnic proportions in Latvia. There was a constant growth in the ratio of Latvian nationality from 1897 up to 1940 (78% of the population). In the years of Soviet regime the ratio of Latvians decreased (till dangerous 54% of the population), while the ratio of Russians at the same time rapidly increased. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russians experienced a loss of their former privileges in Latvia, including language hegemony. Some of Russians returned to Russia, but mostly they stayed in Latvia as loyal inhabitants. They need to learn the Latvian language if they want to get a job at state institutions. The attitude of Russians in Latvia adopt towards the Latvian language can serve as a criterion of how ready they are to accept a view that there exist cultural differences for the nations in the former Soviet Union, and they themselves are not a privileged group of the population, but one of ethnic minorities of the Republic of Latvia. This situation is also test for Latvians. But in the states of the former Soviet Union where the attitude of intolerance to people of different opinions has prevailed for decades is rather difficult to reach and bring into existence an understanding that ethnic and other differences should not make an obstacles to mutual understanding and cooperation. That is why there still exists some tension in the relationships between the core nation and Russian speaking population.
Participant: Dr Hagen Schulz-Forberg
Inst. of History and Area Studies, European and Int. Studies
University of Aarhus
Denmark
Email: hishsf@hum.au.dk
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The Case of European Roma: Where are the borders of a transnational, non-territorial minority? In the last two decades, the issue of Roma integration into European societies has been in the focus of attention from two main viewpoints: a cultural-anthropological and a legal one. Studies on Roma culture exist in abundance, as do studies on Roma rights (or rather the lack thereof). A new practice of rights-claiming and non-territorial nation building has changed perspectives and normative horizons, however. In this process of new interest formations, dialogue between Roma, national authorities as well as transnational ones a new spatial reality emerges defying national borders and overlapping the spatial configurations of the EU and the Council of Europe. New borders emerge combining old and new member states, ignoring old cultural regions in Europe and establishing new horizontal and vertical relations between Roma, NGOs, local and national authorities, and the EU, the Council of Europe as well as the UN, the FAO, UNDP and the World Bank as global actors such as the World Bank entangled in complex relations. The paper will follow case studies of transnational activism and initiatives and show how this new formation of interest in a European and global space changes border settings.
Participant: Ms Meri Stojanova
NI, Institute and Museum
Republic of Macedonia
Email: etno_m@yahoo.com
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The question of historic and ethnic legacy is one of the most important questions in the EU, which especially comes to the site in the period of the expansion of the EU. This is the case with the Prespa region which is divided between three neighbouring countries: Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Greece and the Republic of Albania. The expanding of the EU broth to the sight a lot of long suppressed border issues: minorities, language, ethnicity. A lot of these issues can’t be solved by some of the well known political means, but can be surely overcomed by some of the local initiative. By addressing to the third proposed question and trough the process of joined work, especially trough the work of some non-political institutions, organizations and NGO’s, the expansion of the EU will be much easier. If the cultural and natural wealth possessed in this as well as the other cross - border regions can be put in use of the cultural, tourist or other purposes, and if the population from the bout sides of the border can see the economic benefit of it, it will be much easier to accomplish and solve a lot of “political” issues.
Participant: Dr Irena Šumi
Institut za Narodnostna Vprasanja
Institute for Ethnic Studies
Slovenia
Email: irena.sumi@guest.arnes.si
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Work Group convenor.
Participant: Ms Ruža Toki?
Philosophische Fakultät II, Institut für Slawistik
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Germany
Email: ruza.tokic@staff.hu-berlin.de; rtokic@web.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
The Rhodope Mountain range is located in the south-eastern part of the Balkan peninsula, with over 83% of its area in Southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Northern Greece. Apart from orthodox Bulgarians and Greeks, a Turkish ethnic minority and Roma, it is home to the Pomaks, a Slav-speaking Muslim community, that is living on both sides of the Bulgarian-Greek border (approx. 250.000 in Bulgaria and 36.000 in Greece). Having been ethnically claimed by the Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks and socio-economically marginalised, they have created a rather flexible ethnicity and declare a variety of ethnic identities corresponding to different social circumstances. Furthermore, with the definite demarcation of the Bulgarian-Greek boundary in the Rhodopes in 1919, the Pomaks in Bulgaria have been exposed to assimilation, whereas the Pomaks in Greece are officially recognised as a religious Muslim minority, in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), but have assimilated to the dominant Turkish ethnic minority in Western-Thrace. Moreover, until 1995 most Pomak villages in Greece had been included in a controlled military zone with restricted freedom of movement, so that the transfrontier contacts between the Pomaks on both sides of the border were very few. Since then, different initiatives have been launched to improve cross-border cooperation, first of all the “Rhodopi Euro-Region”. Against this background and the EU accession of Bulgaria in 2007, it remains to be seen in which ways this new transfrontier contacts will have an effect on the identity formation of the Pomaks in this border-region
Participant: Ms Katharina Tyran
Philosophische Fakultät II, Institut für Slawistik
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Germany
Email: katharina.tyran@staff.hu-berlin.de
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
E.U. expansion as a new chance for a common identity? On the self-identity of the Burgenland Croats across three borders
My project focuses on the border situation among Austria, Hungary and Slovakia as it relates to the Burgenland Croats, an ethnic minority which lives in each of the three countries. Until the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy following World War I, the Burgenland Croats—who had settled in historical West Hungary—possessed a single common identity. After the war, the Burgenland Croats found themselves in three separate states and, just as critically, over the next three-quarters of a century several different political systems. With E.U. expansion in 2004, however, this minority found itself once again under a single roof—that of the E.U.—which redefined and consolidated the region occupied by the Burgenland Croats under the name Euregio-Pannonia. My work explores the impact this new definition of the border region between Austria, Hungary and Slovakia has on Burgenland Croat identity, which since 1918 had become fractured due to disparate political systems and minority policies in each of the three countries. The question I pose is whether through E.U. policy it might be possible for the Burgenland Croats to once again understand and define themselves as a homogeneous group, or whether nearly a century of borders had made such a notion an impossible.
Participant: Dr Martin van der Velde
Nijmegen Centre for Border Research
Radboud University Nijmegen
Netherlands
Email: m.vandervelde@fm.ru.nl
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
De-bordering: homogenization or differentiation
In my discussion on the topic of lingering differences (albeit in a somewhat broader extent then only legal and political differences) I would like to question the current general strive for cohesion through homogenization. Our concept of the so-called ‘bandwidth of unfamiliarity’ (Spierings and Van der Velde, 2008) could be used here as a tool to frame and find explanations of cross-border differences which may encourage and discourage international mobility. The historical contexts of borders and border regions play a role in this discussion when trying to analyze perceptions, purposes and practices of actors in border regions. Old but persistent meanings and myths could be an important part of the explanation of why people perceive cross-border differences, how they are experienced and what impact they have on purposes and practices. International mobility and cross-border interaction usually are understood to generate cross-border cohesion in the EU. In this context, the bandwidth-concept can be used to further scrutinize and critically reflect on regional cohesion. In fact, strongly cohesive regions might not contain appealing differences for international mobility - i.e. those regions might offer small or insignificant differences and thereby not promote cross-border interaction practices. Strongly fragmented regions however may contain many unappealing differences and could do the same - because they may offer 'too large' differences scaring people off and thereby generating cross-border immobility. A preliminary conclusion could be that it is just a certain degree of fragmentation that is necessary to generate cross-border interactions and mobility and therewith a cohesive ‘de-bordered’ border-region.
Participant: Dr JoniVirkkunen
Karelian Institute
University of Joensuu
Finland
Email: joni.virkkunen@joensuu.fi
Proposal for the meeting or other role at the meeting:
Estonia received its independence in the early 1990’s when the Soviet Union collapsed. Instead of recreating the state, the Estonian state institutions were formally restored. Being an identity-related conscious choice of the political elite, the restoration principle created continuity from the “first” Estonian independence and formal denial of the Soviet occupation. Yet, that also had a direct impact on the territorial and ethnic bounding of the state, on the way that the Estonian state borders and the extensive Russian-speaking minority were (or were not) managed. (1) Estonia still does not have a formal border treaty with the Russian Federation. (2) For more than 15 years after the reintroduction of Estonian independence, over 200.000 Russian-speaking individuals still live in the country with no citizenship, or with citizenship of another country (usually Russia). The nationalization of Post-Soviet Estonian state and Schengen regime create an interesting context where both Estonian territory and its borders to the East as well as the Russian-speaking minority should be discussed. These elements of bordering and re-bordering I will be my contribution to the working group.