Border Metaphors in the Polish Sociology of Borderlands
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Polish Academy of Sciences
Publication date: 2009-06-30
Polish Sociological Review 2009;166(2):193-212
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ABSTRACT
This paper treatises Polish sociology of borderlands (mostly Eastern) as the rich resources of
metaphors of borders, especially national and political ones. It shows how these metaphors are linked
to different sociological imagery—modern and postmodern. Its aim is to reconstruct analytical strategies
and research projects from this sub-discipline, focusing on metaphors of borders. These strategies and
projects are based on very different approaches to metaphors. The first operation is an instrument which
the theoretician uses to reconstruct the theoretical typology of borders and borderlands. The second
operation is a tool which the researcher uses to reflect more deeply on the empirical data concerning
individual and collective reactions to borders and borderlands. The third operation is a narrative tool
used by examinees who inhabit the borderlands. The paper provides a broad and intensive discussion of
the functions of different metaphors about borders in relation to the different intellectual approaches
to problems of borderlands and borders. It stresses the needs for equal treatment in Polish sociology of
borderland problems of borderlands and problems of national borders. Especially emphasizes the positive
functions of academic interest in borders metaphors in this scientific treatment. Generally speaking, this
analyse enhances many links between sociology of borderlands and cultural anthropology and is closely
connected to the question of where these intellectual operations on metaphors belong in the project of an
interdisciplinary approach to borders and borderlands.