Doctoral defence: Sandra Hagelin “Speaking borders, speaking Europe: entangled borders in governmental discourse across the Baltic and Nordic spaces“

On 30 March at 14:30, Sandra Hagelin will defend her doctoral dissertation “Speaking borders, speaking Europe: entangled borders in governmental discourse across the Baltic and Nordic spaces“ for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (in Political Science).

Supervisor:

Associate Professor Stefano Braghiroli, University of Tartu; Professor Thomas Diez, University of Tübingen (Germany)

Opponent:

Associate Professor Elżbieta Opiłowska, University of Wrocław (Poland)

Summary:

The complexity of border discourse is evident in governmental communication, where different border types often appear together without clarification to their distinctions. This dissertation examines how Nordic and Baltic governments discursively represent borders and the EU, demonstrating how entangled borders contribute to the ongoing re/configuration of EUrope; revealing links between discursive border representations in northern Europe and envisioned EU trajectories. It is grounded in assumptions that articulations of borders reveal how they are imagined, legitimized, and enacted. To this end, it asks: 1) How are borders and bordering processes discursively re/represented in governmental border communication during border-related crises in the EU? 2) What image of EUrope is inferred by these discursive representations?

Drawing on the identities–borders–orders (IBO) triad, it develops an analytical framework that disentangles border discourse into constructions of identity, bordering, and ordering. It applies the Discursive Nodal Points approach, to analyze metanarratives in governmental communication from Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Lithuania during three crises: the 2015 migration crisis, the 2021 Belarus border crisis, and the 2022 restrictions on Russian Schengen visa holders.

The findings show that different border types are nested in complex entanglements, with meaning discursively produced through their interaction. Crises function as discursive opportunities through which borders are reimagined, enabling shifts in interpretation and institutional practice. Governments tend to frame both national borders and the EU’s external border as spatial demarcations, reflecting conventional understandings of borders as dividing lines and symbolically charged expressions of territoriality. While most visible where borders physically overlap, the findings suggest this pattern also applies where national borders do not overlap the external Schengen border. Entangled border constructions variously portray the EU as a guarantor of peace, solidarity, order, or security, converging around the defense of the EU’s perceived uniqueness. Hence, overall, Nordic, and particularly the Baltic, border discourse envisions EUrope as a fortified and protected space.