Project description
Using film to understand the role of European borders
While modern Europe is characterised by openness and collaboration, borders still outline distinct cultural identities throughout the EU. Border regions often present unique opportunities to study how frontiers affect people's identities and sense of belonging. The EU-funded REEL BORDERS project will use fiction film to study and explain how borders are perceived and represented by inhabitants of these regions. This could offer a unique view on how borders can affect conflict, migration and geopolitics, and shed light on how film can be used to shape the perception of territorial frontiers. The goal is to enhance our understanding of borders, advancing cultural studies and the uses of fiction film in Europe and beyond.
Objective
REEL BORDERS aims to bring fiction film to the centre of discussions about borders and belonging. As different institutions and actors increasingly turn to fiction film to circulate messages about borders, the study looks at how borders and fiction film have been related since the early 20th century. Border regimes are intimately intertwined with cultural imaginations and representations of borders and their insiders and outsiders. This project is the first to comprehensively investigate this relation across different borderlands and for the various actors involved. While grounded in the cultural studies tradition, it originally combines insights from representations research, film theory, popular geopolitics, border studies and migration studies.
The main questions to be addressed are: What are the cultural imaginations of borders and its insiders and outsiders found in fiction film? How do different societal actors use fiction film to construct, contest, or experience territorial borders? These questions will be answered by looking at 3 groups of actors (institutions, creatives, and borderlanders) at 3 borderland cases: Ireland-UK, Turkey-Syria, and the Ceuta and Melilla exclaves. The study will combine archival work with media studies methods (production, content and reception analysis) and participatory filmmaking where borderlanders will make their own short films.
REEL BORDERS will have a threefold impact. Empirically, it puts film firmly on the map of research on borders, conflict and migration, while expanding the horizon both in terms of historical depth and geographical width. Methodologically, it will include the most ambitious participatory film study to date. Theoretically, the study will establish new conceptual understandings of borders and belonging in cultural studies and beyond.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
1050 Bruxelles / Brussel
Belgium