The approach of walking as a biographical method of interviewing helped our research participants open up and provide deep spatial data regarding their biographies in the borderlands. This approach allowed a somewhat “paradoxical” freedom of movement in border areas that are usually spaces of limited mobility.

During the course of the EuroBorderWalks fieldwork, the research team from University of Lodz* made several visits to the Polish–Ukrainian borderland, conducting narrative and walking biographical interviews as well as artistic responses to the border and borderlands. As the postdoctoral researcher working on the Polish- Ukraine border I spent the longest period in the borderland area and share some of the images I took whilst conducting fieldwork. 

As part of the EuroBorderWalks project, my doctoral research explores how the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is experienced, practiced and understood through the lives and practices of beekeepers, using a combination of ethnographic, biographical and arts-based research (an approach called ‘ethno-mimesis’ by Professor Maggie O’Neill.

In this blog entry Conach Gibson-Feinblum tells reflects on a misty, morning walk through the countryside at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.