Borders shaping perceptions of European societies

The purpose of B-SHAPES is to refocus on the role of borders in shaping perceptions of European societies in the 21st century, confronted with the challenge of re-borderings in Europe. Borders play a key role in shaping our perceptions of societies, culture, heritage and be-longing.

B-SHAPES results will open for a reconfiguration of heritage policies, replacing national approaches with cross-border, European approaches to heritage, empowering citizens and economic sectors to contribute to the creation of a more inclusive vision of cultures and values.

Scrutinizing the idea of a socially and culturally coherent Europe addressed in the call B-SHAPES will use a peoples perspective to focus on re-bordering as a European crisis with a negative impact on the quality of life in border regions. Border regions are living labs of European integration.

The border closures of March 2020, induced by the pandemic, have severely disrupted previous attempts to develop more cross-border, inclusive, European perceptions of heritage and culture. Borders have continued to be a decisive factor shaping perceptions of us and them, of culture, identity and belonging.

Therefore, it is necessary to refocus on the central role of borders for the European integration project, for how they influence peoples perceptions of Europes historical and cultural past, of heritage, culture, identity and belonging.B-SHAPES will apply different participatory and ethnographic methods of Citizen Science, focusing especially on youth and minorities, to collect data in different European border regions to scrutinize this challenge with the aim to develop strategies and innovative policies using more inclusive approaches to cultivate joint natural, cultural, and historic heritage.