In person icon Bordering Territory, Sovereignty and State

Abstract

This panel aims at exploring how the relationship between territory, sovereignty and the state is redefined in the European political space and in its neighborhood. Rather than focusing on legal and formal issues that accompany all border claims, it concentrates on the social construction of political demands in the context of the establishment of an European area of "freedom, security and justice." What is the process of socially constructing requests for a return of borders? What are the informal social processes that create or reinforce the borders? when these demands are met, how are different political forces trying to restore the borders? In short, how can we redefine the relationship between territory, sovereignty and the state in the European political space and in its neighborhood? These issues can be broken down into at least two themes. On the one hand, demands for borders is a claim for the strengthening of the existing ones to protect against outside threats. On the other hand, they may be requests for new dividing boundaries no formal territorial demarcation previously existed. The panel welcomes contributions addressing these two ways of "making border": dividing and controlling spaces and communities, also vesting specific territories with symbolic meanings.

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