ABSTRACT
In summer 2001, I joined a group of sportswomen who go running in the woods
around Nijmegen, a Dutch university town close to the German border. We
always talk to each other while running, mostly about everyday-issues, but
sometimes also about our work. One day in spring 2002 I remember very clearly
– less for the reason that it was nice sunny weather, promising summer soon to
come, but because it was my turn to ‘discuss’ parts of my current research on the
Dutch-German border. I started explaining that there is less cross-border
interaction than is expected by the European Union and that I have got the
impression that our local euregio-office is not really interested in the region and
its inhabitants, nor that these people are concerned about the euregio. At this
point, my running partners became somewhat curious about this thing called
euregio – of which they had never heard about before. I had to realize that none
of them knew what an euregio is, nor was anyone aware that we live (and run) in
one. This struck me particularly since we cross the border while running quite
often – although we do not make an issue of it (Reichswald, Mookerheide), but
also because we plan the races we will participate in by consulting the regional
‘loopgids’ (running companion). This kind of annual running calendar defines
our region as a cross-border one, advertises events from both the Dutch and the
German side and moreover, it is sponsored by the Euregio Rhine-Waal.
