25 Sep 2021

Natolin First Semester Study Trips – "Borderlands: Peripheries have much to teach the center"

From 25/09 till 02/10
Natolin (Warsaw) Campus

At the end of September, Natolin students of the Éliane Vogel-Polsky Promotion embarked upon their first semester study trips under the overarching theme "Borderlands: Peripheries have much to teach the center". This year, students set off to three destinations and explore the following topics:

  • "Galicia – a laboratory of myths"
  • "Nysa: A new Borderland between Germany, Czechia and Poland"
  • "Coexistence in a multicultural mosaic of the Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish borderlands in Suwalszczyzna and Podlasie"

The study trips are an integral part of the academic programme of the Department of European Interdisciplinary Studies. To learn more about the different destinations and topics of the previous study trips organized for Natolin students, click here.

Regular updates on the study trips were published on our FacebookTwitterInstagram pages and our Youtube page – look for #natolinontour, #borderlands and #NatolinOnVlog.

Overarching theme

The 2021 First Semester Study Trip destinations were all united by a “borderland” theme. Observing and analysing the particularities of “borderlands” helped the students to understand many important processes of cooperation between people and groups in the context of globalization and Europeanization. Moreover, this exploration shone a light on two key threads: the weight of the past that remains in local communities, and the free choices of the past that have been guided by positive values essential for peaceful coexistence and innovation. The first is a tendency toward self-destruction, wherein borderland communities can be manipulated to tear apart their collective tissue. The second is creative inspiration, displaying the ways in which the distinct characteristics of borderlands lead to the formation of communities.

The phenomenon of borderlands is universal and they can be found across the globe, in places such as former Yugoslavia, Uruguay, North/South Tirol,  Sudan, Alsace-Lorraine, the Kurdistan region and Transnistria. The past, present and future of these areas has taken on international significance, and hard-fought battles – both diplomatic and military – will continue to be waged over them precisely because of their “borderland” nature. Right here in the middle of Europe, there is an extraordinary opportunity to investigate four different manifestations of this phenomenon which is the overarching theme part of the Study Trips.

Please find below the full programme of the First Semester Study Trips:

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