The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Where the World Ended: Re-Unification and Identity in the German Borderland
Abstract
When the Berlin Wall fell, people who lived along the dismantled border found their lives drastically and rapidly transformed. Daphne Berdahl, through ongoing ethnographic research in a former East German border village, explores the issues of borders and borderland identities that have accompanied the many transitions since 1990. What happens to identity and personhood, she asks, when a political and economic system collapses overnight? How do people negotiate and manipulate a liminal condition created by the disappearance of a significant frame of reference? Berdahl concentrates especially on how these changes have affected certain "border zones" of daily life—including social organization, gender, religion, and nationality—in a place where literal, indeed concrete, borders were until recently a very powerful presence. Borders, she argues, are places of ambiguity as well as of intense lucidity; these qualities may in fact be mutually constitutive. She shows how, in a moment of headlong historical transformation, larger political, economic, and social processes are manifested locally and specifically. In the process of a transition between two German states, people have invented, and to some extent ritualized, cultural practices that both reflect and constitute profound identity transformations in a period of intense social discord. Where the World Ended combines a vivid ethnographic account of everyday life under socialist rule and after German reunification with an original investigation of the paradoxical human condition of a borderland.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“The acquisition of desirable goods went hand in hand with having established important social ties (Berdahl, 1999).”
From Anti-consumption in East Germany: consumer resistance to hyperconsumption (2010) · cites this paper as Berdahl, 1999
Citations
Cites
Still being checked.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 301–357 of 357
(2020) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478012603-003
(2006) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822388463-007
Bryant, R., & Knight, D. M. (2019) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108378277.003 · Cited by 1
Vasudevan, A. (2015) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781118750520.bref
(2008) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822389026-002
(2008) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822389026-016
„Oral History takes place“. Über ortbezogenes Spurenlesen DDR-bezogener Grenzerinnerungen
Leipold, R. (2022) · BIOS – Zeitschrift für Biographieforschung Oral History und Lebensverlaufsanalysen · doi:10.3224/bios.v33i1.05
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390985-008
(2019) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478007142-007
(2008) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822389026-015
(2020) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478012603-013
(2006) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822388463-008
Ashta, A., Cabraal, A., & Dayson, K. T. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-15347-6_230
Ashta, A., Cabraal, A., & Dayson, K. T. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-6616-1_230-2
(2004) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822385899-008
Bryant, R., & Knight, D. M. (2019) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108378277.011
(2006) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822388227-007
(2017) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822372417-016
(2020) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478012603-017
(2009) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9780822390985-002
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-005
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-007
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-006
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-009
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-002
Provisioning against Austerity
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-004
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-001
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-003
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-008
(2022) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478023203-010
Conceptualising the Borderscape
Tallis, B. (2023) · Frontiers in international relations · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-23249-7_2
Richardson-Little, N., & Stokes, L. (2023) · Central European History · doi:10.1017/s0008938922001017
Erdei, I. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22885-8_3
Die „Anderen“ konsumieren: Postsozialistische Realitäten und Paradoxien der Aneignung in Serbien
Šimić, M. (2023) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-22885-8_5
Lugo, A. (2023) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478027195-005
Translation of Technology : The Sociotechnical Assemblage of North Korean Smartphones
Chae, S. J. (2024) · Korean Journal of Journalism & Communication Studies · doi:10.20879/kjjcs.2024.68.1.011
Doing the Underdog Research: Ethics, Trust, Friendship
Ventsel, A. (2024) · Ethnologie française · doi:10.3917/e.ethn.242.0079
Sınır ve Sınır Güvenliği: Kavramlar, Kuramlar ve Uygulamalar
İSTANBULLU, İ. (2024) · Akademisyen Kitabevi eBooks · doi:10.37609/akya.3284
O’Dowd, Q. (2025) · Work Employment and Society · doi:10.1177/09500170241309508
Judicializing and Dissecting Communism at the “End of History”
Gökarıksel, S. (2025) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781009653800.002
Gökarıksel, S. (2025) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781009653800.001
Towards an anthropology of acquisition: ‘How did you get that?’
Garth, H. (2025) · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute · doi:10.1111/1467-9655.70015
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-009
Transnational Migrant Bosshood
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-006
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-007
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-001
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-008
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-003
Surveillance and Regulation in the Shenfen (Identification) Economy
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-004
Speculative Real Estate and Flexible Appropriation
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-005
(2025) · Duke University Press eBooks · doi:10.1215/9781478061830-002
Ethnobiology Along the Borderlands of Mexico and the United States
Narchi, N. E., & Garibay-Toussaint, I. (2026) · Journal of Ethnobiology · doi:10.1177/02780771261418163
Les frontières de la Moldavie post-soviétique
Duquesney, L.-J. (2022) · theses.fr (ABES) · doi:10.70675/a5e13f33zcc6cz4bc4z9205z4c9635c5a6ca
Kurtović, L., & Mikailova, S. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197849880.003.0618
Metadata
- Authors
- Berdahl, D.
- Corresponding author
- Berdahl, Daphne
- Venue
- University of California Press eBooks
- Publisher
- University of California Press
- Published
- 1999-05-10
- OpenAlex
- W4246822231
- Cited by
- 358
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 44.69
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- University of California Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › German History and Society
- Social Sciences › Demography › Migration, Health, Geopolitics, Historical Geography
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition
- Keywords
- Berlin Wall, German reunification, borderland identity, post-communist transition, liminality, personhood, social organization, gender, religion, nationality, everyday life under socialism, cultural practices, ritual
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review