Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION

Viadrina Center

B/ORDERS IN MOTION

Profiles

The Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION is a Central Scientific Institution of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder).

Borders aim to establish or maintain orders, be they specified in law, handed down through history, or expressed through symbols. Orders, in turn, cannot exist in the absence of border demarcations, whether in the form of lines on a map or as patterns for differentiation in people’s minds. The understanding that borders and orders must always be conceived of in dynamic interrelationships guides the work of the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION. It initiates and bundles analyses concerning these interrelationships in the social, cultural, economic, and legal sciences.

European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

Postal address: Große Scharrnstraße 59, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder)
Scientific Manager: Dr Andrea Meissner
+49 (0) 335 5534 2880
meissner@europa-uni.de
Viadrina Media Portal

Visitor address: Große Scharrnstraße 23a, D-15230 Frankfurt (Oder), Floor 4

Current events

Jul

Thursday 18.15

Border controls on the Oder: legal, political and humanitarian challenges

18:15 - 19:45. Senate Hall (HG 109) and in the livestream // Research Factory

News from the Center

CfA: Hinterm Horizont geht’s (nicht) weiter? Zum Verhältnis von Grenze und Horizont

Jahrestagung der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft e.V. vom 18. bis 20. September 2025 an der Universität Regensburg : Panel der Sektion „Kulturwissenschaftliche Border Studies“

09. July 2025

CfA: ERUA Online Biennale "Arts & Edges" Nov 28-29, 2025. Deadline extended!

We invite you to take part in ERUA's Online Biennale "Arts & Edges", which will be hosted by the University of the Aegean on November 28-29, 2025.

27. June 2025

Opening of the first border information point in Guben

On Wednesday, 18 June 2025, the first border information point in the German-Polish border region will be opened at the Spree-Neisse-Bober Euroregion office in Guben.

16. June 2025

Anthology on cross-border public services published

The volume, edited by Centre members Peter Ulrich, Norbert Cyrus and Jarosław Jańczak, comprises 18 contributions and is aimed at both practitioners and researchers. The volume was presented to the public on June 25, 2025.

16. May 2025

All news

Research | Teaching | Transfer

Research

The insight that borders and orders are inextricably linked guides the work of the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION and is encapsulated in the term “B/ORDERS”. We do not regard borders and orders as being natural and given, but as the result of social practice and the creation of meaning, which is in constant change, “in the making”, “IN MOTION”. Our multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach is designed to capture border and order configurations in their dynamics. In doing so, we focus on the subject areas “borders & boundaries” (understood not only in a territorial, but also in a social and temporal sense) and “migration” as an area defined by multiple border settings and border crossings.

Teaching

The Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION attaches great importance to research-based teaching and innovative formats. We view borders as laboratories in which social developments condense and which shape migration. This enables new perspectives on the transformation of cultural, social, economic, legal and state orders. Our courses are designed for BA and MA students as well as doctoral candidates and are offered in German and English.

Transfer

Borders and migration are topics of particular social relevance. As a research institution situated in close proximity to the German-Polish border, we see ourselves as bearing a special responsibility to provide science-based findings for addressing the challenges we face today. We present our research approaches and results in the “Research Factory” series of events and in various publication formats and we seek to engage with the interested public. We collaborate with civil society and public organizations to make our expertise relevant in practice.