Border controls and closures have historically been used to combat epidemics. These are measures that can be implemented on simple authority of States but whose efficacy remains to be widely validated scientifically. In 2020, numerous countries reacted in this way to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, even before implementing domestic policies against the disease. In these countries the speed of this response is linked to past policies which relied on tightening border controls to reinforce the feeling of security and belonging. However, this trend is antithetical to the implementation of an effective public health policy.
In Europe at the beginning of the year 2020, due to the Covid19 epidemic, numerous national borders were abruptly closed. These closures, the first of their kind, referred to as "covidfencing" in this article, were a serious setback for many cross-border workers. This episode has demonstrated the deterritorialisation of numerous activities in Europe, which are no longer tied to one territory, but to several, and the dependency of these activities on borders.
The 2020 public health crisis aroused very diverse reactions within the European Union in terms of migration policy. Initially these measures impacted migrant works in essential sectors of the Union's internal economy (including healthcare and agriculture). Then when it came to getting the economy restarted, these workers had to return to work, very often without sufficient account being taken of their precarious situation and safety. In this context, the existing migration systems played a dual role: channels used by States in the earliest days of the crisis, but then remobilised by the workers who wanted their rights and their safety to be respected.
This article details the process of the formation of the Greater Region as a specific space for cross-border cooperation in Western Europe. The author recounts the history and background to this cooperation and presents the different regions making up the cross-border territory. He then explains its specific socio-economic features through the themes of cross-border working and labour immigration. Finally, he details several cooperation projects initiated, including the cross-border polycentric metropolitan region (RMPT) project. This last example is emblematic of the difficulties involved in future cooperation in this territory.
In this article, we concentrate on the sensitivity of the labour market to financial crises in Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a global financial centre specialising in banking, investment funds and insurance. This specialisation partly conditions the labour market in Luxembourg. Specialisation in financial activities requires a highly qualified workforce. Luxembourg is a small country that suffers from labour shortages and needs migrant workers. Against this background, we will show that cross-border workers are at greater risk of losing their jobs than native workers.
The Longwy cross-border area provides a fertile ground for discussing theories on the transformation of social issues into spatial issues, from the past domination of the steel industry and the brutality of the changes that have occurred over a thirty-year period to the sharp increase in cross-border working. Various representations of the notion of the cross-border rub shoulders here. The discourses of the institutions propose readings that are more and more focused on going beyond borders and moving further and further away from contradictory social relations. Yet researchers are reasserting the fact that it is social relations that define a territory, which, in return, inscribes them in its territory. But they do not agree on whether or not the class struggle has disappeared.
This collective and multidisciplinary publications questions the notion of the border, whose realities and existence are today being challenged under the effect of globalisation. Four disciplines come together here: law, history, sociology and economics. The publication offers historical and epistemological reflections arising out of analyses of European border situations. It highlights the recent changes in the border situations in the European space and the social dynamics running through them.
This article draws on the exchanges at the different sessions organised at the 7th Association for Borderlands Studies World Conference. Each session was devoted to the question of borders in a specific part of the globe: Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and North America. The primary aim of these sessions was to develop a shared approach on these different territories. This article summarises the exchanges that took place and assesses the global approach proposed.
Due to its attractiveness, since the end of the 20th century, Luxembourg has seen strong growth. This development has occurred more or less coherently at a functional level, but is very fragmented at the social level. In fact, many highly qualified workers now live in this cross-border metropolitan area. This article analyses this phenomenon based on spatial data with the aim of understanding how this young territory is structured according to the transport networks and the borders.
