(WEG) Test Page Peet

Test Page Peet

[3] Ben Highmore, Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction, 1-5  

In reality, crossing a border at a specific place and time, one is still confronted with barriers. That confrontation, but also the spirit of the EU member states is perhaps the most tangible in those border regions. Local public transport does not correspond across the national border, there are different approaches on (care of) public space and social housing and social security systems barely correspond nor collaborate to help the frontier worker. These are only a few examples out of the daily life in border regions. Related to the situation today the border is more present than before: for example, on the eighteenth of March 2020 the border between Belgium and the Netherlands was closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the border between Germany and The Netherlands remained open.1The two team members, part of Dear Hunter live and work in the Euregion Meuse Rhine and were confined during the first wave of Covid-19 contamination in Heerlen and could experience themselves the diverse impact of Covid-19 measurements. As such, the physical borders suddenly were back in people’s lives in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. So, the simple line on the map representing the border lacks the complexity, diversity and constant shifting character of the inner borders. Representations of border regions on maps should contain the different realities of the border and its specific local impact. As stated by Beatrix Haselberger, whose work at several universities across Europe focusses on the nature of borders and their impact on space and people: “All the maps and atlases with which we are familiar confront us with a particular geopolitical picture of the world. It is a world’s surface divided into distinct state territories, each clearly demarcated by a line – the state border – and illustrated in a separate colour. This jigsaw of states is usually taken for granted, as if borders are built for “eternity” and moreover as if the underlying concept is clear and well-defined. (…) However, borders are not just “visible lines” in space or on a map; on the contrary they are complex social constructions, with many different meanings and functions imposed on them. Planners are advised to acknowledge these nuanced and underestimated impacts on space and people as they are decisive for the success or failure of planning endeavours.” 2Beatrix Haselsberger, Decoding borders. Appreciating border impacts on space and people, Planning Theory & Practice, 505-526

border – and illustrated in a separate colour. This jigsaw of states is usually taken for granted, as if borders are built for “eternity” and moreover as if the underlying concept is clear and well-defined. (…) However, borders are not just “visible lines” in space or on a map; on the contrary they are complex social constructions, with many different meanings and functions imposed on them. Planners are advised to acknowledge these nuanced and underestimated impacts on space and people as they are decisive for the success or failure of planning endeavours.”2Beatrix Haselsberger, Decoding borders. Appreciating border impacts on space and people, Planning Theory & Practice, 505-526



[3] Ben Highmore, Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction, 1-5  

[1] The development of Cartopology as a research field is in full expansion as team member Marlies Vermeulen is conducting a PhD research on Cartopology. Vermeulen shares her research project on www.cartopology.institute  

[2] Stefan Hirschauer, Putting things into words. Ethnographic description and the silence of the social, 413-441.

[3] Ruth Benschop, De eland is een eigenwijs dier. Een gedachtenexperiment over praktijk en relevantie van artistiek onderzoek.

[4] John Law, STS as Method.

[1]Gianna Pomata, Nancy G. Siraisi, Historia, Empericism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe, 178.

[2]John V. Pickstone, Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology and Medicine, 60-102.

[3]Alfred Habdank Skarek Korzybksy (1879 –1950) was a Polish-American independent scholar who developed a field called General Semantics.