https://czasopisma.uni.opole.pl/index.php/p/issue/feed 2025-07-02T09:11:55+00:00 Anita Dmitruczuk anita.dmitruczuk@uni.opole.pl Open Journal Systems <p>The <em>Border and Regional Studies</em> (BRS, from 2013 since July 2020 known as&nbsp;<em>Pogranicze. Polish Borderlands Studies</em>) is a peer-reviewed, academic journal published quarterly, in open access, by the Institute of Political Science and&nbsp; Public Administration of the University of Opole. The journal is dedicated to the advancement and development of latest thinking in the border, borderlands and regional studies. The Journal publishes articles from different disciplines that cover and explain the problems of regions, borders, and borderlands or different phenomena affected by the processes of bordering, de-bordering, re-bordering, and regionalization. Due to the interdisciplinary character of borderlands studies, the journal consists of articles published by political scientists, geographers, sociologists, economists, and also scholars from other disciplines.</p> <p>Articles published by the BRS cover the following areas:<br>- cross-border cooperation,<br>- border conflicts and disputes,<br>- border regimes and policies,<br>- social, cultural, political, economic and religious life on the borderlands,<br>- international migration,<br>- history of the border areas,<br>- ethnic and regional identities, minority issues and ethnopolitics,<br>- regions and regionalism,<br>- local and regional politics on the borderlands,<br>- new approaches to and applications of borderlands and regional studies,<br>- border geographies.</p> <p>Since 2020 the articles are published only in the English language.</p> https://czasopisma.uni.opole.pl/index.php/p/article/view/5663 2025-04-21T11:04:38+00:00 Marcin Dębicki marcin.debicki@uwr.edu.pl

<p>The article deals with the cross-border dimension of the social reality in the Polish-Ukrainian borderland. My intention is threefold: to describe the local perception of the border and the nature of local cross-border practices, to identify the determinants of the diagnosed state, and to propose an entry of these findings into selected theoretical concepts of border(lands) studies. The basis for my claims were ethnographic activities: a series of observations and interviews conducted with residents of this borderland while walking the entire area (at least 450 kilometers, about 120 towns and villages visited) in 2017–22, that is before the escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. The main findings of the research are that the border is for my interviewees a largely tamed phenomenon, almost invisible on a day-to-day basis. Despite its relatively low permeability, it is generally not associated with a barrier or limitation of the possibility of contact with the Ukrainian side of the borderland. This is due to the locals’ perception of the low attractiveness of that area and its inhabitants. The underlying empirical findings thus suggest a rethinking of theoretical categories that would be useful in capturing the phenomena inherent in borderlands of this kind.</p>

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