Territorial Dynamics, Cross-border Work and Everyday Life in the Finnish–Swedish Border Area

Borders have become increasingly complex and multifaceted in the contemporary world. In spite of accelerating globalisation, flows of refugees, efforts at lowering the internal borders within the EU and general statements on the disappearance of borders, the state-centric system of territories and their borders still channels, through inclusion and exclusion, the ways in which most human beings recognise national practices and in which their daily lives are patterned at both the individual and the institutional levels. This paper aims at contributing to the on-going debates on European regional dynamics and the shaping of territories and will look critically at the current roles of borders as objects of research. It analyses the history of the Finnish–Swedish border and the co-operation taking place there at present as a contextual example in order to look at whether national practices and meanings still structure the way in which this border is shaped in its new EU context. It will first scrutinise the historical roles of this border, which has been one of the EU internal borders since 1995, and will then look at how local people have led their daily lives in this context. The empirical observations show that, in spite of increasing interaction and co-operation, this national border still structures a certain regionalisation of everyday life and identities and provides a socio-spatial framework for organising and performing daily routines in a national context.