BORDERLINE EUROPEANS: EUROPEAN UNION CITIZENSHIP ON THE POLISH-GERMAN FRONTIER BY ANDREW D. ASHER B.A., Northwestern University, 2000 M.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Matti Bunzl, Chair Associate Professor Zsuzsa Gille Associate Professor Andrew Orta Associate Professor Mahir Saul Abstract Based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2003 and 2006 in the border cities of Slubice, Poland and Frankfurt(Oder), Germany, this dissertation is an examination of the meanings and practices of the European Union's transnational citizenship policies. By documenting the everyday negotiations, interactions, and reflections of life on the Polish-German border, this study chronicles both the successes and failures of European Union citizenship at the local level, and focuses particularly on how various social groups experience European Union citizenship in disparate ways, how the performance of citizenship contributes to the formation of transnational public spaces and identities, and how the tension between the legal and cultural elements of European Union citizenship profoundly structures local citizenship practice. The key intervention of this study is the observation that even as European Union policies aimed at creating deterritorialized economic, social, and political spaces expand supranational citizenship rights and privileges, hierarchies of value embedded within these policies grant rights differentially to individuals and groups in ways that are often linked to ethnicity and nationality. This dissertation therefore argues that despite European Union policymakers' efforts to create a hybridized "European" identity that might transcend historical conflicts and divisions, the processes they are using to pursue this goal are simultaneously generating new forms of difference and inequality. n For my Parents and For Sofiya 111 Acknowledgements Many individuals contributed to the realization of this project, all of whom I own a debt of gratitude. I would first like to thank my adviser, Matti Bunzl, who provided invaluable insight and encouragement throughout my graduate studies, and the members of my dissertation and advisory committees, Zsuzsa Gille, Mahir Saul, Andrew Orta, and William Kelleher, who helped shape the intellectual development of this project. I would also like to thank my colleagues in Poland and Germany, Michal Buchowski, Jaroslaw Janczak, Toralf Kleinsorge, and Sebastian Mayer, who assisted my research in Frankfurt(Oder) and Slubice in a myriad of ways, both practical and academic. I am grateful to Junjie Chen, Jennifer Hardin, William Hope, Tina Hope, Jolanda Kersten, Jennifer Shoaff, Katherine Sredl, Sarah Phillips, and Michelle Wibbelsman, who contributed their ideas, critiques, and intellectual and emotional support during my time at the University of Illinois and while I wrote this dissertation. I am especially thankful to my parents, Jody and Riley Asher, and my sister, Aleesha Perry for their love, support, and encouragement throughout my scholarly endeavors. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Sofiya Asher, for the indispensable help and assistance that made a great deal of this project possible, and above all, for her love and patience. IV Table of Contents Table of Abbreviations vi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Tomorrow's Europeans Today 39 Chapter 3: Inventing a City: Cultural Citizenship in "Srubfurt" 63 Chapter 4: Spaces of Commerce: Citizenship Regimes and Local Economics in Frankfurt(Oder)/Smbice 94 Chapter 5: Schengen's Excluded: Third Country Nationals on the Polish-German Border 125 Chapter 6: New Citizens of a New Empire? EU Imperialism and Euro-orientalism 152 Bibliography 193 Appendix A: Buying Detergent: A Transnational Illustration 216 Curriculum Vitae 220 v Table of Abbreviations A8 The 10 countries that acceded to the EU on May 1, 2004 with the exception of Cyprus and Malta. A10 The 10 countries that acceded to the EU on May 1, 2004 (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia). A12 The 12 countries that acceded to the EU on May 1, 2004 and January 1, 2007 (the A10 plus Bulgaria and Romania). CP Collegium Polonicum in Slubice, Poland DM German Marks EC European Community EEC European Economic Community EC J European Court of Justice EMU European Monetary Union EU European Union EU15 The 15 EU member states prior to the EU expansion on May 1, 2004 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom). EU25 The 25 EU member states following the accession of the A10 on May 1,2004. EU27 The 27 EU member states following the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on January 1,2007. EUR EU Euros FRG Federal Republic of Germany GDP Gross Domestic Product GDR German Democratic Republic PLN Polish Zloty VI MEPS Master's of European Political Studies PPP Purchasing Power Parity PPS Purchasing Power Standard vn Chapter 1 Introduction A European Border in 2005 An ironically located McDonald's on the comer of Karl Marx Strasse and Rosa Luxemburg Strasse marks the beginning of the border crossing between Frankfurt(Oder), Germany and Slubice, Poland. Proceeding west toward the border, a traveler passes a casino, a few taxis waiting near the Frankfurt(Oder) Sports Museum, and several empty lots that until recently held socialist-style apartment blocks. Entering the covered area of the border control complex, cars and bicycles continue along the roadway to inspection booths, while pedestrian traffic is directed along the outside edges to windows located in the checkpoint buildings. After waiting in a short line—almost never more than five minutes—all travelers must present a passport or national identification card to both the German and Polish border police. For European Union (EU) citizens, this is an open border, and the document check is usually cursory, amounting to only a glance through a passport or at an ID card. For people carrying non-EU, "third country" passports, the check is more stringent, and its rigor often depends on the traveler's country of origin. After clearing the checkpoint, travelers cross a steel three-lane bridge that spans the Oder River (Fig. 1.1). From the bridge, crossing the approximately 150 meters that actually separate Frankfurt(Oder) and Slubice appears deceptively easy. However, at least 70 people have drowned since 1993 during attempts to illegally cross the Polish- German border. Police boats and helicopters regularly patrol the river, while various 1 Source: Data compiled from various media sources as of March 14, 2007 by the NGO UNITED (www.unitedagainstracism.org). Page 1 less visible surveillance technologies, such as thermal imaging cameras, monitor the frontier to prevent unauthorized access to the EU's border-free zone. At the end of the bridge, a white and red boundary marker bearing Poland's crowned white eagle (Fig. 1.2) greets travelers arriving on the east side of the river. Parallel to the river and adjacent to Slubice's protective dike, a long, often two-car-wide, line of taxis waits around-the-clock for people crossing from Germany. On the opposite side of a traffic circle, mini-buses stop to take people to the local bazaar, located a little less than two kilometers from the bridge and a favorite destination of German shoppers (See Chapter 4). Directly across from the bridge, Slubice's pedestrian zone, ulica Fig. 1.1: The border bridge between Frankfurt(Oder) (far side) and Slubice. The border checkpoint buildings are visible at the left end of the bridge. Jednosci Robotnicze (United Workers Street), or the "Zigaretten Strafie" (Cigarette Street) in local slang, offers the discount cigarette and alcohol shops that are ubiquitous along the border, as well as restaurants, beer gardens, hair salons, convenience stores, and money exchanges. Page 2 The less famous of Germany's two Frankfurts, Frankfurt(Oder) is referred to locally simply as "Frankfurt," and its full name is normally used only to differentiate it from the much larger Frankfurt(Main)-a stylistic convention I will also observe throughout this dissertation. Frankfurt is located about 80 kilometers east of Berlin, and together with Slubice forms a transnational urban area of about 90,000 residents.2 Even before Poland's EU accession on May 1, 2004 made the Oder River an internal EU border, this location placed the cities at the center of Fig. 1.2: The border marker in Slubice. the EU's efforts to expand its common market The Zigaretten Strafie is visible in the background. through the elimination of barriers to the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital. As a "laboratory" of European integration, Frankfurt/Slubice is therefore one of the locations where the EU has most vigorously pursued policies aimed at creating what Martinez (1994) calls "integrated borderlands," or border regions that have "no barriers to the flow of goods and people," and "enjoy a relationship of equality, trust and respect" (Donnan & Wilson 1999:51). By pursuing this project of deterritorialization, EU policymakers work against several of the most entrenched functions of state borders. Borders are extremely potent symbols of state power, and are places not only where the practices, techniques, and tactics of Foucaultian governmentality are particularly visible and personally encountered (Foucault 1991:102, cf. Donnan and Wilson 1999), but also where populations, the Frankfurt(Oder)'s population in 2005 was 64,656, while Slubice's population in 2006 was 20,212. Page 3 "terrain par excellence of [modern] government," can be delineated, managed and regulated (Miller and Rose 1990:2, cf. Brubaker 1992a:27-31, Foucault 2007:105, Inda 2005:4). In this regulatory function, state borders act as powerful mediators of identity by separating individuals into different categories (e.g.