University of Luxembourg
In cooperation with UniGR-Center for Border Studies (UniGR-CBS)
Every two years the European conference of the Association for Borderland Studies (ABS) is organized and offers a platform to scientists in the field of Border Studies. After taking place in Finland/Russia (2014), the University of Luxembourg will host the ABS Europe-conference in 2016.
Borders play a particular role in Luxembourg. The Luxembourgish village Schengen gained international celebrity due to the signed treaties for open borders. In 2015 this agreement celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Luxembourg shares its national borders with three other states (Belgium, Germany and France). Opening the borders had large impacts on the state’s economic, social and political development. Besides the opening of the European internal borders due to the Schengen Agreement, a hardening of the European external borders can be observed.
Illegal flows of refugees and the European organization FRONTEX display only two potential consequences of this hardening of external borders.
However, Luxembourg also offers other borders. Among others there exist e.g. regional and local borders, language borders, cultural, political and economic borders. Here, the Greater region “SaarLorLux” assumes important relevance. Aside from Luxembourg this also includes Wallonia, the German speaking community of Belgium, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Lorraine.
The conference will take place in the young University of Luxembourg: the new university location Belval, in cooperation with the University of the Greater Region (alliance of six universities of the Greater Region SaarLorLux). This university location is also situated close to the French-Luxembourgish border.
The ABS Europe 2016-conference in Luxembourg wants to highlight the topic “Differences and discontinuities in a “Europe without borders””. The sessions are divided into the following subtopics:
- Mobility and multilocality
- Multilingualism and diversity
- Growth and sustainability
- Instability and change
We would be delighted to obtain contributions from different disciplines of the Border Studies as well as an interested expert audience. Furthermore we would like to encourage professional exchanges and to bring of course Luxembourg and the Greater Region closer to you.
The University of Luxembourg and the organisation team look forward to welcoming you!.
ABS-Europe2016_CfP.pdf 1.12 MB
Interested participants are asked to submit a short abstract of max. 3 000 characters (incl. space characters) using the following online form
(open from January 2016): www.abseurope2016.eu
Please first register at the website and then upload your paper proposal.
Closing date for the paper proposals: 29 February 2016
Feedback for submitters: 15 April 2016