Description
People living in European borderlands have a close relationship to the border, often having to cross it every day for work or familial reasons. These populations are therefore directly affected by recent re-bordering trends in the EU. Nonetheless, the voices and narratives of people living in borderland areas are often overlooked in the literature.
Border scholars have found the media, including social media platforms, to be fueling borderland insecurities and to be a venue for rising nationalist political sentiments (Renner et al., 2022;). Perceptions of Europe are often included within these narratives, which are shapes by social contexts and local dimensions (Scalise, 2015). However, the literature in border studies has rarely focused on the perspective of national minorities to analyse the effects of these ruptures. This is the research gap which the present study attends to.
The empirical data focuses on a thematic analysis of 1,705 news articles from eight minority newspapers in six European borderland contexts (in Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, and Slovakia). These media narratives are complimented by the narratives of young adult borderlanders (aged 18-30). Through the analysis I develop an understanding of how national minority newspapers report on borders, and how these contrast with the perspectives of citizens. It is revealed that open borders are of particular importance to borderland communities, who feel increasingly detached from state-level decision makers, and whose localness is also disconnected from the European Union. The analysis shines a light on the often-invisible perspective of national minorities in border and European studies.
