Revisiting marginal borderlands through affect and emotion

The aim of the workshop is to reflect on function and significance of affect and emotion in marginal borderlands and towns, relating them to the topical issues of migration, mobility, memory, identity, and diversity. In border regions, depending on respective hegemonic national discourses, legacies and memories of unresolved conflicts over territorial demarcations, ethnicities, language use and identities persist. These dissonances assume a significance that makes sensitivity towards transnational actors and practices unlikely. Thus, borderlands generate “clashing emotional styles” (Scheer 2012: 218). Margins (Tsing 1994) refer not only to peripheral geopolitical locations, but are also understood as sites where conflicting histories and experiences converge, and where centralized discourses are challenged through creative forms of alternative and counter-narratives. Analysing margins opens up new perspectives on the cohesion of established social and cultural settings. By approaching borderlands through the prism of affect and emotion, we aim to navigate the contradictions inherent in hegemonic representations, narratives and practices, leading to frictions and continuously creating new “others”.

The workshop was funded by the Research Council of University of Klagenfurt and Faculty of Humanities & Education.