Contested national borders

Abstract

This chapter analyses the changing role of the national territory in collective identity discourses. Homogenising and demarcating the nation were central in nationalist identity discourses. It was linked to iconic places and events, like the development of peripheral regions like the Emsland in Germany and the shifting of the disputed border between Germany and Belgium in the 20th century. These closed national borders have become negative iconic places in cosmopolitan identity discourses. Their opening has transformed them into positive icons of the opportunities European integration provides to these peripheral regions. The last part of this chapter focuses on the different uses of iconic places linked to international migration in cosmopolitan and parochial identity discourses. It analyses the use of the white cliffs of Dover and several asylum seeker centres in the UK and Germany in the polarisation between these identity discourses.