Date of publishing:
25.6.2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21104/CL.2026.2.01
The Český lid provides open access to all of its content under licenseCreative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
Abstract:
Everyday experiences of cross-border environmental conflicts are frequently overlooked in legal, institutional, and policy-oriented analyses. Based on a qualitative narrative analysis of interviews, situational conversations, and public texts collected between 2019 and 2022 in the Czech–Polish borderland, this article examines how local actors on both sides of the border narrated the dispute over the Turów lignite mine. Focusing on narratives of water, work, energy security, institutional trust, and belonging, the analysis shows how competing moral economies structured perceptions of responsibility, legitimacy, and normality. The findings demonstrate that while everyday cross-border practices largely endured, the conflict reshaped the symbolic and emotional foundations of coexistence. By approaching narratives as everyday cultural practices rather than strategic rhetoric, the article contributes to ethnological and anthropological understandings of borders as lived and narrated spaces.
Keywords
lived experience, belonging, moral economy, environmental dispute, Czech–Polish relations
Article Text
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