Living Boundaries

Living Boundaries examines the ways in which individuals construct and express their identities in a frontier area characterized by Basque ethnic and identity politics and undergoing institutional and socio-economic change as part of the current EU context. Taking as its focal point a cross-frontier cooperation project designed to transcend national, cultural, social and political differences in a context of disappearing frontiers and attempts to promote European 'integration', it analyses the way in which local politicians draw on 'culture' and 'identity' for popular legitimacy. In doing so, it reveals some of the obstacles that impede the development of a new sense of common togetherness. Following on in the tradition of social anthropological research, this book is laced with rich ethnographic accounts that tie in with contemporary socio-political issues. It challenges notions of fixed identity among members of groups often perceived as homogeneous, and suggests the rethinking of the concept of identity in terms of a configuration of boundaries that are constantly drawn, crossed and reinterpreted by individuals in the course of everyday social interaction.