Border Discourse. Changing Nations, changing Identities, changing Stories in Polish and German Border Communities, 1998-2001

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.This is a qualitative data collection. The project targeted three-generation families living in corresponding sets of geographically contiguous border communities on the border between the EU and some of its Eastern and Southern neighbours, in the case of this dataset on the border between the German town of Guben and the Polish town of Gubin. The communities on which the research focussed on have undergone major socio-political, highly conflictual changes during the lifetimes of all but their youngest citizens. Today they are associated at the public level with the aims of creating a socially inclusive, tolerant, cohesive and economically prosperous united Europe. The research proposed to gain comparative and in-depth insights into the nature of potentially conflicting identities which people from different nations, ethnicities, generations and genders construct and negotiate in relation and possibly in contrast and opposition to the official spheres of politics, and to recommend policies that would further social cohesion between such communities at local, national and in particular at the European level.