Book review: Border encounters: asymmetry and proximity at Europe’s frontiers, edited by Jutta Lauth Bacas and William Kavanagh

"Border Encounters: Asymmetry and Proximity at Europe’s Frontiers." Jutta Lauth Bacas and William Kavanagh (eds.). Berghahn Books. November 2013. --- Among the tremendous changes affecting Europe in recent decades, those concerning political frontiers have been some of the most significant. International borders are being opened in some regions while being redefined or reinforced in others. Border Encounters is rich in empirical detail, writes Anne White, and is also an excellent introduction to border theory, with a helpful literature review. Anthropological case studies from a number of European borderlands shed light on the questions of how, and to what extent, the border context influences the changing interactions and social relationships between people at a political frontier.