Exploring the Concept of (Un)familiarity: (Un)familiarity in Border Practices and Identity-Formation at the Slovenian–Croatian Border on Istria

Abstract

In border region studies, the concept of (un)familiarity is applied in empirical studies of consumer culture across borders, illustrating how feelings of unfamiliarity can have an off-putting influence on cross-border interaction (e.g. because of dislike of or lack of attraction to the other side) at the same time as it can be an incentive for people living at borders to cross them (e.g. to explore the exotic other side). The concepts explanatory scope has, thus, far responded to the normative claim that a borderless Europe encourages and increases mobility. However, in previous studies applying the concept of (un)familiarity, an explanatory problem remains concerning people's unarticulated and perhaps deeper reasons for mobility and lack thereof. This leaves a question mark as to why feelings of (un)familiarity occur in the first place as well as the actual degree to which they constitute barriers and provide incentives for mobility. The concern in this article is to deepen our understanding of the concept of (un)familiarity. It enriches the bandwidth of the unfamiliarity concept by relating it to a notion of socio-spatial identity-formation, which takes into consideration the psychological aspects involved when identities form. By doing so, the concepts explanatory scope is extended, making it possible to explain some of the complexity involved when feelings of (un)familiarity occur. It, thus, also answers the question why (un)familiarity cannot be translated into normative claims about cross border mobility.

Notes

When the spelling “(un)familiarity” is used in the article it connotes both familiarity and unfamiliarity. Otherwise the words should be understood literally.

An ESF sponsored project, “Signs of European Times” running from 2010–2013 is going to employ the concept of (un)familiarity empirically and thus develop the concept further in order for it to apply in a broader range of empirical studies. The present reflections should be understood in the context of the research project.

This is also indicated by Spierings and Van der Velde (2008) when they distinguish between the emotional and the rational side to (un)familiarity.

The following clarification of the self is to a large extent informed by Lacanian psychoanalysis and thus a Hegelian notion of the self.

It should be mentioned however, that much twentieth century European philosophy has emphasised narrative forms functioning as de-construction of the stable self (Derrida 1981; Critchley 1992; Levinas 1985). In their criticism of psychoanalysis in Anti Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari (1977, 1988) took this claim to the extreme by fully eliminating the stable self and exposing it as a philosophical invention.