UniGR-CBS Seminar Border Studies

Collaborations - Across Borders, Languages and Disciplines
Collaborations - Zwischen Grenzen, Sprachen und Disziplinen
Collaborations - Entre Frontières, Langues et Disciplines

Welcome to this year's Seminar Border Studies at Trier University. The UniGR-CBS Trier team wishes you a pleasant seminar and stimulating discussions on the topic of border studies. On this page, you will find information about the seminar schedule and the individual programme items.

The seminar will take place on 13 and 14 November 2025 at Trier University. The venue is the chapel (room K101) on Campus II of the university. Further details on the venue and how to get there can be found on the uni website.

Programme - Thursday, 13th November 2025

Reception and Welcome
[12:00 - 12:45] Reception with refreshments
[12:45 - 13:00] Welcome and Introduction

Presentation and Inputs from the UniGR-CBS Working Groups
[13:00 - 13:45] WG Spatial Planning
The Spatial Planning Working Group will first present its main areas of research and then provide an insight into two current projects being worked on by members across borders. First, Tom Becker will present the LATI project – Laboratory for Territorial Intelligence – in which all UniGR partner universities are involved. Beate Caesar will then present the results of a study conducted by the working group in cooperation with ITEM and other members of the TEIN network on the territorial impact of the reintroduction of border controls, using the German-Luxembourg border as an example.

[13:45 - 14:30] AG Grenzüberschreitende Beschäftigung und Bildung
Presentation of the working group with three previews. Details t.b.a.

[14:30 - 15:00] Coffee break

[15:00 - 16:00] Keynote Lecture
Matters of Writing and Publishing in Interdisciplinary (Marine) Scholarship
Dr. Andrea Franke & Prof. Dr. Kimberley Peters

Writing is what we do as academics, but rarely are we trained to write, let alone with others in more complex configurations that cross disciplinary borders. Yet now, more than ever, are we being asked to work in interdisciplinary ways to address pressing environmental and societal questions. Whilst much has been written on how to work in teams that consist of different disciplines and research traditions, ironically, little has been written on how to write effectively in such circumstances.
In this keynote address, we draw reflexively from our own experiences as natural (Andrea) and social (Kim) scientists, navigating the tricky cross-boundary terrain of writing well. Drawing on our collaborations in ocean research (itself a research area that is fluid, and demanding of interdisciplinary working to understand how physical and biological processes impact societies), we shed light on the challenges faced while writing and publishing together and how we overcame them. We argue that better understanding diverse writing and publishing traditions that exist within the borders of different disciplines and fields is essential forharnessing the full potential of crossing those boundaries and producing cutting-edge interdisciplinary scholarship. We highlight the differences between disciplines/sciences that may hinder effective collaboration and offer guidancetowards closing the gap on writing across disciplinary divides. We argue that writing challenges — just like other challenges of working across disciplinary lines — need to be transparently discussed. In this talk, we do so to showcase how to work towards successful writing and publishing relationships that are predicated on openness and respect.

[16:00 - 16:30] Coffee break

[16:30 - 18:00] Workshop
World Café on the Future of the UniGR-Center for Border Studies
t.b.a.

Day 1 Closing Remarks
[18:00] Closing remarks

Communal Dinner

Following the official programme, there will be an optional dinner at Pizza Club Trier. The restaurant is located a few minutes' walk from Campus II and offers a wide selection of food and drinks. >ou can already familiarise yourself with the menu here.

Please note: To simplify the reservation process, participation in the dinner is only possible if you have registered for it on the seminar registration form.

Programme - Friday, 14th November 2025

Reception and Welcome
[09:00 - 09:30] Reception and Welcome

Presentation and Inputs from the UniGR-CBS Arbeitsgruppen
[09:30 - 10:15] WG Bordertextures
The Bordertextures working group provides insight into the scientific foundations of its work and explains the central concepts of bordertextures and bordertexturing. It also reports on the Bordertextures studio, panel projects, networks and relevant publications. Two members of the working group then explore cultural studies perspectives on borders based on their own current research. A joint discussion with the participants concludes the session, clarifies open questions and opens up perspectives for future collaboration.

[10:15 - 11:00] WG Border Temporalities
Presentation of the working group with a workshop report on the status of an anthology on border temporalities and the possibilities for dialogue between border studies and historical studies.

[11:00 - 11:30] Coffee break

Open Spaces - Current Projects
[11:30 - 11:45] Gathering in the groups
[11:45 - 13:00] Implementation of the Open Spaces
The open spaces will be conducted in three parallel groups, and participants must choose one of them during the seminar. The language of the abstract corresponds to the language in which the open space will be conducted.

[Group 1] Disaffected EUropean democrats - Learning from EU border regions
JProf. Dr. Carola Fricke & Prof. Dr. Daniela Braun

Intensified by globalization, internationalization and Europeanization where power has been continuously transferred from the regional and national level to higher levels of polity, representative democracy worldwide but also in Europe is currently said to be under pressure. Therefore, the planned project seeks to study the question of disaf fection with EUropean democracy in a particular setting: border regions in member states of the European Union (EU). In EU member states we can observe a new set of struggles resulting ultimately into a new political cleavage between proponents and opponents of European integration fuelling already existing problems of representa tive democracy. In EU border regions such conflicts are supposed to play out in a more pronounced way than elsewhere, because integration efforts as well as integration problems tend to emerge earlier and more strongly there. These considerations result in the following main research questions: (1) How precisely can we describe the dif ferent features of disaffection with EUropean representative democracy and how are general features of political disaffection interrelated with EU-specific challenges? (2) Which groups of society are more likely to be disaffected with these different features of EUropean representative democracy and for what reasons. (3) What are the main determinants of disaffection with EUropean representative democracy?

[Group 2] Tourism and Leisure in the Border Region
Prof. Dr. Fabian Frenzel & Prof. Dr. Michael Mießner

This open space brings together researchers from across UNIGR to consider tourism and leisure in the region. We seek to initiate networking and collaborations on topics such as cross-border tourism development, river tourism (including river cruises), ur ban and rural touristification, related challenges such as housing shortage and con gestion, rural gentrification, heritage commodification and management and sustain ability in interdisciplinary perspectives, from planning to anthropology and archaeol ogy, business studies, sociology and geography.

[Group 3] Projet INTERREG Grande Région CAPACITI
Dr. Florence Renard, Mélanie Zenner & Laurent Nisen

Le projet INTERREG Grande Région CAPACITI se donne pour mission d’associer ac tivement les enfants dans la promotion et la défense de leurs droits. CAPACITI est un projet visant à favoriser la participation active des enfants et l’inclusion de ceux-ci dans la défense et l’exercice de leurs droits dans la Grande Région. Huit partenaires financiers et actuellement quinze partenaires méthodologiques sont mobilisés autour de cet objectif. Les enfants constituent le public-cible de ce projet financé par le programme Interreg Grande Région et bénéficieront, dès février 2028, de conseils, de formations, d’outils ludopédagogiques (des serious games, par exemple), et aussi d’histoires interac tives. Ces outils seront proposés aux acteurs de la protection de l’enfance, qu’il s’agisse de praticiens, de familles et des enfants eux-mêmes.  Inégalités socio-économiques, barrières culturelles et linguistiques, coordination in suffisante entre les différentes institutions et secteurs… Nombreux sont les défis ter ritoriaux qui entravent l’accès et l’exercice de ces droits.

Farewell and Lunch
[13:00] Closing remarks