Un/Certain Borderlands: Multimodal Discourses of Border Renaissance in Polish and German Media

Abstract

Since geopolitical crises accelerate migration from warzones or places of forced cultural homogeneity, we can notice an increasing meaning of borders today in a changing society, not only in Western but also in Eastern Europe and in-between. At the same time, findings from interdisciplinary border research emphasize precarious phenomena of ‘uncertainty’ or ‘in-between-ness’ and hybridity, suggesting that borders have a ‘liminal quality’. In the emblematic case study on re/bordering at the German–Polish borderland, traits of a renaissance of the border and territorial un/certainty, mean irritation in space, cultures, and forms of belonging. In developing discursive practices in time such as symbolic and socio-spatial phenomena of demarcation, exclusion, and transformation, this report refers to empirical phenomena like the “Rosary to the border” and “LGBT-free zones” in Poland or the “Willkommenskultur” in Germany. It juxtaposes interpretive reciprocal patterns of borders, like ‘fear’ and ‘irony’ that weave a tapestry of un/certainty. These examples show how the Polish–German borderland is affected by re/bordering practices without necessarily being geographically close to it and therefore show its liminal quality.