IDENT2 - Strategies of Regionalisation: Constructing Identity Across Borders

IDENT2 is a University funded research project in which scholars from the research unit IPSE – Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces approach a common research topic from diverse scientific positions and points of view. Identity construction processes, one of IPSE’s central research focuses, were explored in the present project’s predecessor IDENT between 2007 and 2010. Some of the results obtained in IDENT will be developed further and extended to cover issues of spatial construction in IDENT2 (2011-2014).

The project is drawing on the wide variety of spatial references that can be observed in the practices of everyday life and in discursive patterns prevailing in various forms of media. Though the political representations and administrative classifications of these forms of spatiality remain inadequate, a more dependable understanding of their nature and scope can be achieved through a close examination of the processes, strategies and social mechanisms involved in the production of space. This approach, which is known as “everyday regionalisation processes” (Benno Werlen), provides this project’s outlook on the constructions of space and identity in border areas and transnational contexts. Border areas are not to be understood as necessarily physical or geographical, however, but as research contexts, in which boundaries of any kind are crossed, erased or established. This perspective puts the focus on ‘border practices’ and on the dichotomies and negotiations (e.g. familiar/unfamiliar) these practices produce in everyday life/culture.

The nine disciplines of the social and cultural sciences involved in IDENT2 are collaborating, covering different social aspects in their research. The findings from the 23 empirical case studies will contribute new insights on both historical and current societal processes in relation to identity and the spatial features of social coexistence.

Press review

Article “IDENT2 – Räume und Identitäten in Grenzregionen”, Luxemburger Wort (Die Warte), 02/10/14, p. 11.

Article “Mieux comprendre la Grande Région”, L’essentiel, 04/09/14, p. 8.

Interview with Heike Mauer and Julia Maria Zimmermann to the case studies “Räume der Un-/Sittlichkeit” and “GenderRäume”,
Radio 100,7, 13/08/14. listen

Interview with Till Dembeck, Radio 100,7, 12/08/14. listen

Interview with Sonja Kmec and Christian Wille, Radio 100,7, 11/08/14. listen

Article “Grenzerfahrungen – Sprachkompetenz und Sprachbewertung in Luxemburg und der Grenzregion“, Lëtzebuerger Journal, 21/07/2014.

Article “Grenzüberschreitung – Kolloquium „Räume und Identitäten in Grenzregionen““, Lëtzebuerger Journal, 08/07/2014.

Interview with Sonja Kmec, Agnès Prüm, Laura Caregari and Christian Wille to several case studies within the project, Radio 100,7 (broadcast “Café Scientifique“), 20/06/14. listen

Article “Wohnen jenseits der Grenze – Das ist ein Geben und Nehmen“, Tageblatt, 17/04/2014.

Article “Wenn Grenzen Öffnungen schaffen”, Télécran – Das Luxemburger Magazin No. 42 (2014), p. 20-21.

Interview with Sonja Kmec and Jeanne Glesener concerning the identity research at University of Luxembourg, Radio 100,7, 01/10/2012. listen

Article “Wir Luxemburger? – Die Vielfalt macht den Unterschied“, Télécran, 30/06/2012.

Interview with Sonja Kmec, Rachel Reckinger and Christian Wille to the IDENT2-project, Radio 100,7, 07/08/2012. listen