Nested Peripheralisation

Abstract

This article is part of the special section titled Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries, guest edited by Pamela Ballinger. The break-up of the Cold War order, the eastwards expansion of the European Union into former socialist countries and the more recent economic and humanitarian crises have led to the emergence of new symbolic borders and the reconfiguration of spatial hierarchies within Europe. The article shows how metageographical categories of “Europe,” “East,” and “West” and underlying classificatory logics are not only circulated in geopolitical discourses but can be appropriated by ordinary citizens in their everyday life. Using the Russian–Estonian border as a case study, the article examines the recursive negotiations of Europe’s East–West border by people living in the borderland as a response to the geopolitical changes. It highlights three border narratives: the narrative of becoming peripheral/Eastern, the narrative of becoming European, and a narrative contesting the East–West hierarchy by associating the East and one’s own identity with positive things. On both sides of the border, the status as a new periphery does not create unity across the border but rather results in multiple and competing border narratives, in which “Europe” functions as an unstable referent in relation to which one’s position is marked out. This “nested peripheralisation” at Europe’s new margins reflects power relations and uneven local experiences of transformation.

The Role of an Open Border in the Development of Peripheral Border Regions: The Case of Russian-Belarusian Borderland

“…Many scientists contributed to the discussion of overcoming peripherality in postsocialist transition (Pfoser 2017;Popławski 2017;Anđelković-Stoilković, Devedžić, and Vojković 2018;Wojcik et al 2018;Vaishar and Št'astná 2019). Some scholars emphasize that integration can reduce concentration and peripherality, particularly if peripheral areas retain cost advantages (Schürmann and Talaat 2000;Perrons 2006; Davies and Michie 2011).…”

“…However, some authors believe that integration fuels funnels the concentration of higher-level business activities into a small number of cities, while the economic structure of many regions becomes more precarious due to increased competition between locations. The new (post-socialist) border regions receive the status of new periphery (Pfoser 2017).…”

Understanding Russophone Estonian Identity Through Popular Culture: An Analysis of Hip-Hop Hit “für Oksana”

“…Pfoser (2017) additionally highlights local discourses among residents in Estonian border town Narva and its Russian neighbor Ivangorod, in which the economic and social benefits in Estonia are understood as part of the notion of being “European,” an identity marker used to positively differentiate Russophone Estonians from those living across the border. This may partly result from top-down Estonian discourses of “returning to Europe,” which were a major component of the country’s re-independence narrative, aimed at emphasizing the illegality of Soviet rule, yet also acting as a mechanism to effectively “other” Russian minorities in the country (Jordan 2014, 21).…”

“…Regardless, this highlights self-perceptions among Russophone Estonians of their difference from Russians in Russia (Cheskin 2015, 81). According to Pfoser (2017, 41), such understandings appear reciprocal, as Russians in Ivangorod also tend to see Europe as entirely distinct from Russia, and therefore, incompatible with their own, unique “non-European” identity.…”

(Im)moral Mobilities in a Swiss Borderland

“…The social, economic, and geographical position of the valley, a form of "nested peripheralization" (Pfoser 2017), (re)produces an "imagined community of fate of the Valleyers" (Charmillot and Dahinden 2021). Informed by this process of peripheralization, the current local dominant conception of membership in the imagined community appears to be mainly grounded in local and socioeconomic values, such as supporting the local economy.…”