Natalia Niedźwiecka-Iwańczak: Exploring divided cities: A narrative approach

During the conference The Line Crossed Us 2021: New Directions in Critical Border Studies, held June 10-11, 2021, Natalia Niedźwiecka-Iwańczak presented a paper: Exploring divided cities: A narrative approach.

The aim of this presentation is to elaborate on the concept of narratives and its applicability to the exploration of divided cities in Europe. Divided cities are spaces created by political authorities of certain states, but also by local authorities as well as social actors through their activities, practices and narratives across the national borders. Numerous actors on both sides of the state border are engaged in producing stories, using numerous resources and carriers. The research should take into account narratives created on different levels: a local one (by the elites and bottom-up), a state one, and a European one, and consider how borders, urban space and urban national neighbourhood are constructed. Concluding: three kinds of narratives – public, individual and spatial ones – make up a reservoir of common knowledge on the divided cities. The proposed approach has a comprehensive character and takes into account the complexity of the multi-voiced narrative material. The concept of narratives can be crucial for understanding the complex process of de- and reconstruction of state borders and social boundaries in divided cities, especially in the moment of change (like e.g. Covid-19 crisis).  The elaboration of this paper is a part of project realised by researchers of the Centre for Regional and Borderlands Studies at the University of Wrocław (Poland) in border towns Słubice and Frankfurt(Oder), Cieszyn and Český Těšín Tesin on the Polish-German and Polish-Czech border.