ABSTRACT
When Yugoslavia fell apart for the second time in its history, the geographical area became subject to a tremendous amount of change, including the drawing of new and more borders between independent states (Lampe, 2000). The first border to be recognized by the international community, today separates the republic of Slovenia from that of Croatia. As a consequence of the history of the region, the fairly quiet Slovene secession from Yugoslavia as well as the early international recognition of Slovenia and Croatia’s right to declare the states independent, the location and existence of the Slovenian–Croatian border is rarely regarded as geopolitically arbitrary. The institution of this border, which is for the time being also an external EU and a Schengen border, nevertheless changed life for people living at the border. Even when the physical existence of the border is not questioned, it is and remains a geopolitical construction intruding in everyday life and interaction in the regions located at it (cf. Barbic, 2004; Pavlakovich-Kochi and Stiperski, 2004).
