Multilayered identities, memory politics, environmental conflicts, and mobility in the Czech - Polish - German borderland 3102-FER-LMI

The German-Polish-Czech borderland landscape, in both physical and social understanding of the term, represents a fascinating laboratory of multilayered identities, reflected in constant power games about the identity and memory of the region(s). Often perceived as periphery to their respective nation states, these places had been constantly reshaped at the milestones (1918,1945, 1968, 1989, 2007, 2014, 2022) of the “big” European history, bringing ongoing changes of the population as well as economical usage of the physical landscape (agriculture, coal mining, tourism, nature protection etc.) These also led to constant reshaping and re-negotiations of often overlapping and sometimes conflicting identities (citizenship, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, environment etc.). The central politics of the national states, as well as of the European Union, suggest (and finance) different labels and understandings of the region - while different groups of the local people negotiate and strive to enforce their own understanding. The course brings together young researchers from the three countries to try to understand this puzzle as well as reflect on the biases brought to the fieldwork.

The project offers a shared intensive international anthropological course for 15 students from Czechia and 15 students from Germany and Poland (BA, MA, PhD). It combines online lectures and workshops with ethnographic field research in Bogatynia (PL), Hrádek nad Nisou (CZ) and Zittau (DE) – cities located on the Czechia-German-Polish border.

Institutional Partners:
Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences
Warsaw University, Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology
Martin Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology
Leipzig University, Global and European Studies Institute
Leibniz-Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Leipzig

Lecturers:
Barbora Spalová, Lucie Trlifajova (CZ)
Zuzanna Bogumił, Helena Patzer (PL)
Asta Vonderau, Sabine Stach (DE)

Who can take part in the course?
The seminar is open to students of ethnology and anthropology of all levels (Bachelor, Master and PhD) who are interested in the themes of the seminar, would like to participate in an international project, and have sufficient “mobility capital” for taking part in the Erasmus+ BIP exchange programme.
During the semester the students will practice methods of anthropological fieldwork in the borderlands during a 1-week fieldtrip on May 5-11, 2025.
We have only 10 places for students from Warsaw University, so we ask interested students to fill in a short application form and take part in an interview.
Participants will receive a scholarship to cover the costs of the fieldtrip, accommodation and food (79 euro/day).