Participants are invited to submit a 1 page proposal identifying the nature of the inner frontiers – whether real or imagined, cultural or political, administrative or legal, or indeed other boundaries demarcating the town or city. A comparative approach in space, place or straddling longer historical periods from medieval to modern is particularly welcome.

Territories are not just about geographical or physical space. They extend to cultural, imaginary, gendered, fiscal, administrative, legal, and property boundaries, demarcated between private and public interests. Conveniently, these boundaries sometimes overlap precisely but more often there are many layers of inexact and conflicting jurisdictions which forge alliances between interests, or generate tensions.

We propose in this panel within the European Urban History Association Conference in Stockholm session to approach urban societies, as clusters of identities (often spatial) defined by religion, social status, language and cultural background creating numerous fictitious, imaginary or metaphorical boundaries.

At a theoretical level, urban polities were melting pots in which cultural, confessional and national diversities were mixed and homogenisation took place. In practice, however, such cohesion and unity proved unachievable and towns and cities were confronted with ongoing diversity – in religious, linguistic, political, cultural and ethnic forms. Amongst the consequences were a process of fragmentation and the rise of various frontiers within towns and cities. Thus inner frontiers developed through administrative procedures and local customs.

Please send your 1 page proposal to any one of the organisers:
Luda Klusakova, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, luda.klusakova@ff.cuni.cz
Jaroslav Miller, Dept. of History, Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Rep. jarousek@hotmail.com
Marjaana Niemi, Department of History, University of Tampere, Finland, Marjaana.Niemi@uta.fi
Richard Rodger (contact information follows)