BOTEX – Bordertexturen: ein Ansatz der kulturwissenschaftlichen Border Studies (Buchprojekt)

The working group of UniGR-Center for Border Studies brings together 10 researchers in the field of cultural sciences from the University of Sarre, the University of Luxembourg and the University of Lorraine. This working group has been focusing on border studies since 2015 from a perspective based on cultural sciences, and in this context has developed the border textures approach. It is based on a specific understanding of borders and encompasses different intertwined dimensions offering multiple accesses for analytical approaches.

This approach was already discussed from a theoretical-practical standpoint and was also explored through analysis examples (cf. Weier et al. 2018) . However, the potential of border textures has not been fully tapped yet, which explains why the working group is still working on – and with the help of – this approach. Simultaneously, the working group communicates on border textures with selected cultural science researchers working in the field of border studies. With the BOTEX book project (2019-2020), the working group intensifies its exchanges with researchers working on borders from a cultural science perspective. To do so, it invites a selection of authors to address border textures from a critical and productive viewpoint in their contribution to the publication. The contributions of the invited authors will be published with the contributions of the border textures working group members and grouped in a publication destined to constitute a common laboratory for the subsequent development of the approach.

Border textures are addressed from different angles in the publication project:

• Conceptual concepts and (new) developments: The invited authors may, in their field of specialisation, continue to develop the theoretical and conceptual approach, as well as cover certain specific aspects in order to develop them productively or link them to similar or complementary approaches in the field of border research.
• Methodological reflections and problematisation Invited authors may, based on the experience of their own work, raise awareness on methodological issues related to the approach as well as its grey areas.
• Empirical applications and tests: With a view to perform the application and tests, invited authors may refer to their own analysis example or even draw up example scenarios based on their own work in order to show how border textures can be analysed.

However, the discussion on the approach to border textures constitutes a contribution to achieve a stronger theoretical-practical basis for Cultural Border Studies as well as better visibility of the working scope.