Neighbourhood and perceptions in small cities on different Russian borders

Abstract

National neighbourhood have a significant influence on the life of people living along the state borders. They shape human interactions across borders and border residents’ attitude towards neighbours. Many concepts like ‘neighbourhood’, ‘proximity’, ‘trust’, ‘(un)familiarity’, and ‘otherness’ are usually used to explain this processes in border studies. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the comparing of perceptions, life strategies and everyday life of borderland population depends on neighbouring policy, border regime and neighbourship. Here we focus on different Russian borders with Ukraine (the new contested border in Crimea), Kazakhstan (the EAEU`s internal border), and China (old international and contact border) using different sources of information, including expert interviews as well as field observations and focus groups conducted with locals. We find that people differentiate between the neighbors they know and the neighbouring state they do not trust. Significant differences between neighbouring territories, unfamiliarity, and otherness are not allowed to get in the way of contact, because it is this contact that allows local residents to make a living. In conclusion, our results suggest that while the objective differences between the various sections of Russian borders serve to diversify the neighbourhood situations, their subjective perceptions and social representations serve to unite them.

The changes in perceptions and attitude of Japanese and Russian students towards the neighboring country (comparison of polls from 2007, 2012, and 2021)

“…Finally, by asking respondents from Japan and Russia to describe the personal traits of their neighbors and analyzing their responses, we can understand how students of both countries perceive the people of the neighboring state. Discussing neighboring countries, participants distinguish two ideas: the first is that the neighboring country is "a state and a government," and the second is that it is "a country and people" [Zotova et al 2020]. Concerning the first, participants expressed various and sometimes negative emotions, while, concerning the second, participants tended to express positive emotions such as sympathy and trust.…”

“…Every nation has a number of symbols or emblematic elements associated with it that are intrinsic to its identity and heritage, while, at the same time, the knowledge about a neighboring country and familiarity with its culture -including social norms and symbolic values -is reduced to mere stereotypes [Zotova et. al 2020].…”

State And Non-State Cross-Border Cooperation Between North Karelia And Its (Un) Familiar Russian Neighbors

“…Since Spierings and Van der Velde (2008) developed their model 'Bandwidth of (un)familiarity' , its usage has grown steadily (See e.g., Spierings and Van der Velde 2008;Izotov and Laine 2012;Klatt 2014;Németh 2015;Nielsen 2019). Although the foundation in these studies is built on Spierings and Van der Velde's (2008) theocratization, there have been different adaptations (see e.g., Spierings and Van der Velde 2013;Andersen 2013;Szytniewski and Spierings 2014;Nielsen 2019;Zotova and Gritsenko 2020). Today the usage has expanded to include analysis of cross-border issues within areas such as labor movement, perception, identity, and representation of otherness, including what encourages and discourages mobility across state borders.…”