SHAPING AND INTEGRATION OF SMALL DIFFERENCES: ETHNOGRAPHIC INSPECTIONS IN A EUROPEAN BORDER REGION
SHAPING AND INTEGRATION OF SMALL DIFFERENCES: ETHNOGRAPHIC INSPECTIONS IN A EUROPEAN BORDER REGION

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with a special situation which has largely been ignored by ethnological research up to now. With the processes of European integration and delimitation, not only have historically problematic regions increasingly incurred a new dynamic but also border regions with a long tradition of peaceful coexistence and cross-border cooperation, challenging regions to work on their similarities as well as their internal differences. How this is experienced and contended in the various domains of politics and everyday life and at the same time how belonging is treated or rather situationally tested were the issues addressed by a research project of the Ludwig-Uhland-Institute. This article will discuss the principles of approach to field research in a unproblematic border region as well as some of the findings from the field research carried out in the Bodensee (Lake Constance) region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) in 2006.

• Details
• Contents