The socio-territorial belonging in a cross-border area: a sociological approach

Abstract

This paper presents a case study carried out in the Italian town of Gorizia and the Slovenian town of Nova Gorica. These two towns used to belong to the same nation, whereas now they are separated by a national border. Since their separation, their history and social processes have taken different paths, but the two towns are located along the same border area. The research focuses on the sense of socio-territorial belonging in the Gorizia and Nova Gorica residents towards their respective town, country and Europe. A particular type of qualitative interview with photos was applied: the bipolar photo elicitation.

Keywords:

• socio-territorial belonging
• border area
• interview with photos

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Until the accession of Slovenia to the European Union in 2004, it was impossible to cross the Italian-Slovenian border without a passport (or a special pass for the locals).

2. We were able to conduct these interviews in Nova Gorica because many people speak Italian in this Slovenian town. All the interviewees from Nova Gorica affirmed that they learned Italian in childhood, thanks to the Italian television; they remembered with a smile the times when they were kids and watched the cartoons broadcasted by the Italian television (they told us the Yugoslav TV did not broadcast cartoons). In the opinion of our interviewees, the use of the Italian language has increased since the opening of the borders in 2004 for commercial purposes.

3. A typical example is Catani and Mazé's work, Tante Susanne (1982). An ambitious work because it tries to reconstruct – by means of a single case – the value system of the French cultural model (or at least that of the working class of rural origin). The researcher Catani has published the complete transcript of six conversations that constitute Suzanne Mazé's story of social life. In these conversations he finds out unexpected recurrent elements and meticulously analyses their significance (Bertaux, 1998).

4. With a population of about 60 million inhabitants, Italy covers an area of 301,336 km² divided into 20 regions further divided in 110 provinces.