Exploring Cross-Border Labor Commuting as a Practice of Tactical Mobility

Abstract

Within the last few years there has been an increased interest in the interplay of structure and agency in border studies. Following the strategic-relational approach, these studies generally focus on territorial actors, particularly subnational institutions and how they use their capacities, to establish transnational cooperation and networks, to overcome the obstacles resulting from national and / or multi-governmental policies. Like subnational organizations and institutions on border regions, cross-border commuters develop and use tactics to overcome the socio-economic and legal risks and crises. Based on the thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews with commuters from Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Poland, it is demonstrated that by being mobile across the borders, commuters aim at gaining flexibility and a relatively advantageous position in housing and labor markets of different countries. This paper, by referring to the strategic-relational approach, argues that cross-border mobility is practiced as a form of tactical mobility in which commuters constantly revise their mobility practices, depending on new, emerging socio-economic conditions. Moreover, by referring to the concept of de Certeau’s (1984) tactic, three main typologies of cross-border mobility are conceptualized.