Authors

Discussion

Do borderland residents differ in their geopolitical orientations from the rest of the society and its hegemonic geopolitical discourses? The paper examines the geopolitical orientations of ordinary residents in two borderland regions: Georgia’s boundary with the de facto republic of South Ossetia and Hungary’s border with Ukraine. Theoretically, this study has two goals. First, the paper compares peripheral (borderland residents) and central (hegemonic) geopolitical views on nationhood, sovereign territory, security and foreign policy. Second, in case of differences between centre and periphery, it explains the distinctiveness of borderland geopolitical discourses by analyzing local everyday experiences, the sense of security and insecurity, and cross-border relationships and attitudes. Empirically, the paper centres on Georgia’s and Hungary’s territorial issues (separatism and occupation in South Ossetia, the Hungarian autonomy in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia) and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war (the sense of danger from Russia, solidarity with Ukraine and attitudes towards the great power rivalry). Methodologically, the research relies on qualitative interviews with ordinary residents of the two border regions. I conducted fieldwork in Georgia in August and September and collected twenty semi-structured interviews in five villages on the Georgian side of the South Ossetia boundary. I plan similar fieldwork in the Hungarian-Ukrainian border region in December and January.