Katarzyna Stoklosa is Associate Professor in the Department of Border Region Studies at the University of Sønderborg.

Gerhard Besier is Chairman of European Studies at the Technical University of Dresden.

Introduction Katarzyna Stok¿osa and Gerhard Besier Part I: Territorial Disputes and Questions of Identity 1. The Spanish-Portuguese Frontier (1297-1926): Identity Midway Between Dialogue and Settlement of Accounts Miguel A. Melón Jiménez 2. The Boundaries Between France and Spain in the Catalan Pyrenees: Elements for the Construction and Invention of Borders Oscar Jané 3. Dividing Regions? Plebiscites and Their Propaganda-Schleswig and Carinthia 1920 Nina Jebsen 4. Schleswig: A Border Region Caught Between Nation States Steen Bo Frandsen 5. The Spanish-Moroccan Relationship: Combining Bonne Entente with Territorial Disputes Jaume Castan Pinos 6. From a Look Backwards to a Look Forwards: The Way to the Border Agreement Between Latvia and Russia Laura Asarite 7. The Building and Erosion of the "Post-Conflict" Irish Borderscape Cathal Mccall Part II: Cross-Border Co-Operation 8. Re-Signification of the Past in the Northern Portugal/Galicia Border: Amenity, Heritage, and Emblem Paula Godinho 9. Towards Cross-Border Network Governance? The Social and Solidarity Economy and the Construction of a Cross-Border Territory in the Basque Country Xabier Itçaina and Jean-Jacques Manterola 10. Border-Region Tyrol in Historical Perspective: Bridging the Wrong Border? Andrea Varriale 11. The Bulgarian-Greek Border Region: Cross-Border Cooperation Under the Shadow of Minority Issues Nuri Ali Tahir Part III: Perceptions of Borders and Border Regimes 12. The Sociocultural Landscape of the Soviet-Finnish Borderland of the 1930s as Seen Through Autobiographic Childhood Stories Olga Ilyukha 13. (Im)Permeability of the Border in Late Socialism: The Small Traffic Phenomenon on the Romanian-Yugoslavian Border Corneliu Pintilescu and Lavinia Snejana Stan 14. The Border in the Narratives of the Inhabitants of the German-Polish Border Region Katarzyna Stok¿osa 15. The Europeanization of the German-Polish Borderlands El¿bieta Opi¿owska 16. Between Borders And Boundaries: Romanian-Hungarian Identity Politics During the 20th Century Monica Andriescu Part IV: Prejudices, Stereotypes and Nationalism 17. Boundaries Between Ourselves and Others: The Role of Prejudice and Stereotypes in General with Specific Reference to Border Regions Gerhard Besier 18. South Tyrol After 1945: An Example of Co-Existence of Different National Groups, or Rather a Cage for Imagined Communities to Lie Frozen? Davide Mauro Artico and Brunello Mantelli 19. Remembrance and Oblivion in the Danish-German Border Region Inge Adriansen

Borders exist in almost every sphere of life. Initially, borders were established in connection with kingdoms, regions, towns, villages and cities. With nation-building, they became important as a line separating two national states with different "national characteristics," narratives and myths. The term "border" has a negative connotation for being a separating line, a warning signal not to cross a line between the allowed and the forbidden. The awareness of both mental and factual borders in manifold spheres of our life has made them a topic of consideration in almost all scholarly disciplines - history, geography, political science and many others. This book primarily incorporates an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political science scholars from a diverse range of European universities analyze historical as well as contemporary perceptions and perspectives concerning border regions - inside the EU, between EU and non-EU European countries, and between European and non-European countries.