First Polish congress of border researchers in Wrocław and Opole

The Universities of Wrocław and Opole, in collaboration with the Universities of Poznań, Białystok and Gdańsk organised the first international congress of border researchers between 16 and 18 September in Wrocław and Opole. The colourful event attracting scholars from different parts of the world has, among others, given a spectacular overview on the research agendas of the Polish academic sphere. The UPS-CESCI Research Group on Cross-Border Cooperation was represented by Zsuzsanna Fejes, the head of the group and the research fellow Gyula Ocskay.

The 3-day long event started in the premises of the University of Wrocław where Patrycja Matusz and Daniel Pietrek, vice-rectors of the two chief organising institutions, Magdalena Ratajczak, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Wrocław) and Leszek Buller, head of the Center for European Projects of Warsaw greeted the audience. The subsequent keynotes were given by Dorte Jagetic Andersen (University of Southern Denmark) and James W. Scott (University of Eastern Finland) who discussed the changing geopolitical environment making an effect on borders and cross-border integration. On 18 September two other keynote speaker, Lidia Zessin-Jurek (University of Warsaw) and Michał Buchowski (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań) spoke about the Polish state-level policies to the migrants coming from Belorussia and the correlation of political and social boundaries.

The plenary sessions were accompanied with 24 panels partly in Wrocław (16 and 17 September) and Opole (17 and 18 September), involving more than 70 speakers from 15 countries – despite the extreme flood conditions within the larger region. Hungary was represented by four researchers from among which on behalf of the UPS-CESCI Research Group on Cross-Border Cooperation, Zsuzsanna Fejes gave a presentation on the legal frames for cross-border institutionalised cooperation around Hungary; Gyula Ocskay (together with the professors Emmanual Brunet-Jailly, from the University of Victoria, Birte Wassenberg, from the University of Strasbourg and Martin van Der Velde, from the Radboud University) took part in the round-table discussion moderated by Laurie Trautman (Western Washington University) which aimed to summarise the results and future perspectives of the Borders in Globalization (BIG) project.

The program was further coloured by two round-table discussions: one on the 20^th anniversary of EU membership of Poland and another on the Polish agendas of border research well-illustrating the rich and very diverse methods and approaches applied by the different Polish schools, such as anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, history, law, literature studies, philosophy, political studies, sociology and art. The latter aspect was nuanced by the projection of the documentary movie titled ‘Walls’ (Mur) directed by the Polish actress Kasia Smutniak and presenting the controversial migration situation along the Polish-Belorussian border.

The bilingual (Polish and English) interdisciplinary Congress was fruitful and its success can easily be justified by the declaration of the organisers that next congress will take place in Białystok in 2026 or 2027.