(De)Construction of cultural identity in the Lithuanian-Polish-Belarusian borderland
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Kultūrinė tapatybė; Lenkija (Lenkijos karalystė. Kingdom of Poland. Poland); Pasienis; Tapatybė; Tautinė mažuma; Teritorija; Borderland; Borderlands; Cultural identity; Identity; Lithuania; National minority; Territory; Baltarusija (Belarus).
ENBorders and border regions are particularly revealing places for social research, especially in the present era of growing globalization, and the growth of suprastate regions such as the European Union (EU). This article situates the growing interest in Eastern “borderlands” in a set of overlapping contemporary cultural and theoretical concerns. Metaphors are intellectual tools. In present-day research, we can find such definetions as narrating space, mapping identities, the geography of identity, contradictory mapping of space, geographic or place-centered dramas of domination, sovereignty without territoriality, disappearances and strengthening of borders which are very close to metaphors. All of them are connected to the problems of space, territoriality and border. The study of territory and borders now constitutes a multidisciplinary research, drawn by political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers and lawyers. Many authors point to the important links between borders and identity, as well as the cultural meaning of the distinction “us” and “them.” The significance of the Eastern borders of Europe is currently changing. Through the focus on its informal, everyday aspects, the article draws together the existing knowledge and develops new understandings of combined social, moral and cultural elements on how these borders are experienced and perceived. The aim of the article is to develop a new approach to studying changes in the Eastern periphery of Europe through exploring the process in which borders themselves become visible, strengthening, meaningful or disappearing, while simultaneously focusing on what those borders separate and what they bring together, along with the impact of remaking borders, which means studying understandings of possible futures as well as the past. [Extract, p. 35]
