ABSTRACT

Among border scholars it has been widely acknowledged that in order to better grasp and understand the de- and re-bordering processes of contemporary Europe, attention needs to be paid to the many different ways borders are created, shifted, and transformed in practices of everyday life. As argued in the Introduction to the present volume, this turn to practice is signalled by central concepts such as ‘borderwork’ by Rumford (2006; 2008); suggesting that a whole range of actors need to be taken into account in explaining current and practice-driven transformations of the borders around the globe. Another example is the concept of ‘bordering’ as elaborated by van Houtum and van Naerssen (2002) which conceives borders as social practices of spatial differentiation that ‘make a difference in space among the movements of people, money or products’ (ibid, p. 126).