Fragments from the conference: A Borderless Europe?

It is early morning; we are leaving our temporary residence in Flensborg. Walking down the stairway, we pass under the ceiling ornamented with the Danish flag. We are on our way to the bus station to catch a bus for Sønderborg, a journey that will take an hour and a half. On our way towards the border, the bus drives by several border shops advertising for cheap beer. We know that we are near the border, but it is difficult to locate the demarcation between Germany and Denmark. Finally, we see the small sign saying DENMARK encircled by the EU flag. We have crossed the border, and entered Denmark. Just across the border, the bus stops and we change busses. Buying tickets, we realize that we only brought Euro. The chauffeur lets us pay with Euro, and we get the change in Danish Kroner. On the bus, cross border commuters are on their way to work. A school class enters the bus, and they all speak both German and Danish. On the road, the bus passes Flensborg Fjord, and gives us a beautiful view of the German coast. We pass by the Danish national symbol Dybbøl Mølle, before entering Sønderborg…
In the beginning of October, Sønderborg University hosted the conference “A Borderless Europe?”
Border scholars from all over Europe gathered to present their papers on border issues in Europe, and what better place than the German-Danish borderland to discuss border situations in our reunited, yet still divided Europe?
Key note speaker Professor Thomas Wilson opened the conference by asking whether border studies can be considered as an independent discipline, or if it is rather a common field of interest that unites different scholars.  Another key note speaker Professor Michael Keating pointed out that the issue of territorial management in Europe, is undergoing a so-called re-scaling process: territorial management should not be understood as either bound to the national or disappearing in global times, instead it is a multi-leveled process taking place on supra-, trans- and sub-national levels.

The researchers at the conference had various academic backgrounds and presented different approaches to the examination of the European borders: From micro-process studies of cigarette smugglers on the Polish-Ukrainian border to the study of diverging national narratives in border regions. From a biopolitical understanding of how mobilities are controlled by, e.g. Frontex at the external borders of the EU to inquiries of transnational cooperation between twin towns.
The different approaches to the border issues facilitated a broad debate on the main questions: is Europe borderless? If not, can it become borderless?
The discussion showed that borders are ambiguous: on the one hand, borders can divide space, and on the other hand, they can function as unifying factors. This ambiguity is present at the internal and external borders of the EU. The internal de-bordering processes show the unifying potential of border regions, e.g. the Schengen agreement. At the external borders of the EU there is an ongoing re-bordering process taking place, leaving out non-EU countries. This shows the dividing character of the border.
The conference showed that the border is multiple: a border can play the role as materialization, as a discourse, as fluid or as stable, as a center or as a periphery. When we crossed the Danish-German border we met the materialization of the border when changing currency and busses, passing the sign with the Danish flag. Simultaneously, the commuters and bilingual children showed that the border is permeable and fluid. For the people living at the border, it becomes the center rather than the periphery that might seem as from other parts of Denmark.

Heading back towards Copenhagen, we did not even notice the proximity of the Danish-Swedish border.
The conference was a collaboration between the Department of Border Region Studies, University of Southern Denmark, and the Saxo-Institute & Centre for Modern European Studies, University of Copenhagen.
Anders Møller, Anne Hanten, Marlene Paulin Kristensen
Master students of European Ethnology, Copenhagen University