Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Urban Sociology

Europe’s internal borders

Europe’s internal borders as a site of tension between local border practices and urban citizenship. A comparative perspective on local border regimes in European cities (working title)

Preparation by Dr. Henrik Lebuhn

Abstract:

Since the mid-1980s, Europe's borders have been changing profoundly. New actors, rules and institutions have emerged and transform the character of the European border regime. More and more, border controls and the monitoring of immigrants' statuses have been extended into the interior of the European Union, and especially into the urban space of European cities. Europe has become a borderland. At the same time, many cities invent new integration policies and forms of local citizenship. The project analyses this double movement as a contradictory and path-dependent (local) development. The comparative perspective on cities in four different European countries aims at identifying locally specific forms of inclusion and exclusion via border practices and citizenship politics as well as factors that account for them.