| This research concerns the significance of borders in cross-border interaction in a period of growing European integration. Borders have a double interrelated meaning. First of all borders are (arbitrary) territorial lines dividing two states with their distinct political and administrative systems. Differences in political-institutional arrangements between states can create substantial mutual disparities in fields like economy, infrastructure and education. Secondly, since the 1990s, borders have increasingly been acknowledged as social division lines, that have and acquire meaning in people's practices and orientations and are thus produced and reproduced in daily life. In this sense state borders have often become boundaries of national identities. Cross-border labour involves both dimensions of borders, since it lies at the intersection of the socioeconomic (making a living) and the sociocultural (organising daily life in a meaningful way). It is therefore a good entrance to studying the double meaning of borders. This study entails the development of the meaning of commuting from the Dutch to the German part of the actual Euregion Meuse-Rhine between 1945 and 2001. It will be analysed in its (regional) economic, political and sociocultural context and on the level of the individual commuter. |
