Blog - European Border Communities

“Beyond Sleep” – The search for the aerial photographs

September 13, 2018 ● Mareike Boom

Data collection, analysis, publication and preservation have been core business of the academic world and its institutions for ages. Still, depending on one’s background, discussions about research data management could sound very new, strange, technical, fancy, confusing, ….or as a new layer of red tape. One might even forget the motivation and different reasons for doing it. Let’s leave all the policies, regulations, protocols, laws and IT projects aside for a moment and join Alfred Issendorf, the protagonist of the novel "Beyond Sleep", in his fieldwork and especially the search for existing data.

The European refugee crisis: crisis for whom?

March 01, 2018 ● Neske Baerwaldt

Representations of the European refugee crisis have come to be embedded in a language that sees Europe as a continent under siege. By putting forth the idea that 'we' are being flooded by 'them', an innocent We and a threatening Them are brought into existence – a distinction that appears divorced from historical and contemporary power structures and the many forms of violence that sustain them. We ought to be aware of the distortions produced in the process, for it is precisely through such distortions that some forms of human life are positioned outside of society's frame of reference and sphere of empathy.

Polskość: the legacy of Polish past in its present identity struggles

January 19, 2018 ● Maryla Klajn

Caught up between legacies of its history and country’s present socio-political developments, the discourse of Polskość, or ‘Polishness’, is a difficult and at times even a controversial topic. What are some of the symbols of the past still present in the discussion about Polish national identity today?