Description
Where did EastBordNet come from?
EastBordNet was founded in May 2006 at a Workshop held in Manchester that was sponsored by CRESC, the British Academy and Social Anthropology at Manchester.
This workshop came about as the result of a hunch: that if researchers working in the northeast regions of Europe (Baltics and surrounding regions) were brought together with researchers working in the southeast regions (Balkans and environs) to compare notes, some intriguing overlaps and differences would emerge,
particularly in the following areas:
• understandings of what makes borders meaningful;
• how the notion of ‘East’ and ‘Eastern’ has diversely contributed to the making and unmaking of borders in these regions;
• the way exchanges as well as separations work in diverse regions;
• and the shifts in how borders – and their crossing – have been conceptualised.
The May 2006 workshop raised so many issues and generated so much enthusiasm that it was decided to try and set up a more long-standing network in order to develop the ideas that emerged there further, to publish some of the results, and perhaps to develop future collaborative research projects.
To that end, support was sought from COST (European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research) to set up a pan-European COST research network for four years. This application was successful in 2008, and the COST research network, called COST Action IS0803, began in January 2009. The activities of this project, which involve a series of workshops, mutual fact-finding visits, research development meetings and two major conferences in 2011 and 2013, are being reported on this website. The ongoing development of collaborative knowledge is reported on EastBordNet's Wiki. If you are interested in seeing the working papers that are coming from this project, please contact darien.rozentals at manchester.ac.uk.
A History of COST IS0803 and EastNetBordNet
May 2006
• Workshop held in Manchester to begin debate about the eastern periphery of Europe in relation to gender and money.
March 2007
• EastBordNet Extranet set up
• EastBordNet-related Workshop, "Money, Location and Visibility" held, sponsored by CRESC, March 23rd 2007
May 2007
• EastBordNet Workshop II, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, May 20-21, 2007
January 2008
EastBordNet Wiki set up
June 2008
• COST approves Action to set up a four-year project to develop the network, entitled "Remaking eastern borders in Europe: A Network Exploring Social, Moral and Material Relocations of Europe's Eastern Peripheries."
January 2009
•COST IS0803 , the research network that grew out of the EastBordNet project, was officially launched with a management committee meeting in Brussels. Researchers from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom signed up to the project.
February 2009
•
The first set of meetings within the COST research network are organized, and calls for participation amongst the members of the network are sent out. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Lithuania join the network.
March 2009
•
France, Israel and Luxembourg join the network.
April 2009
• Estonia joins the network.
• First Work Groups held (Nicosia and Rome)
• Independent EastBordNet website launched
May 2009
• Second set of Work Groups held (Ljubljana and Manchester)
• Preparation of first working papers and Wiki entries
