Granica w świadomości i w rzeczywistości: dwa przykłady z nowych krajów członkowskich Unii Europejskiej
Border in the Mind and in the Reality: Two Examples of the New EU Member States

Summary/Abstract: Research questions like geographical space perception, regional identities research or the influence of historical events on current social relations are in the focus of many disciplines, including sociology and geography. The authors have focused on research of these and similar problems on the examples of two border regions in four EU countries. The principal question is how the perception of the neighbouring country (respectively region) is influenced by objective circumstances like border regime, level of economic and cultural connectivity and on the other hand also subjective perception by local population. There are presented results of the research on Czech-Polish and Austrian-Slovenian borderlands. Research was focused on perception of current cross-border relations trying to determine crucial cultural and historical events which influenced them. Differences of results are tested by using statistical analysis. The statistical analysis tested potentially different perception and behaviour of people by age, education and different level of neighbour’s state language knowledge. The changes in cross-border regime (as the result of countries accession into Schengen zone) are perceived as important ones but the perception of the border and the intensity of cross-border relations react to this fact with substantial time delay. Institutional support leading to the mitigation of barrier effect perception of the border seems to be important especially in the Czech-Polish borderland.

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