ABSTRACT
This chapter includes researchers from within the region and outside of it; in some cases they even represent the opposite sides of disputed borders. In the post-Soviet space, administrative and symbolic borders turned into international state borders. The political and economic relations between and across states and in the borderlands themselves are not yet stable and depend on internal and external developments. In their inspiring edited volume, Corey Johnson and Reece Jones urge people to place the border in everyday life, where it is actually experienced. The borderline can be understood and used not only as an ideological divide, a security measure or a barrier to everyday mobility, but also as a sluice gate/interface or a technical, discursive or emotional opportunity. In all cases, narratives and spatial imaginations about past borders and their historical establishment play a pivotal role in justifying or nullifying current border regimes or bordering in the perspective of people from the local to the state level.
