Traversing the Political Divide: Cross-Border Workers in Cold War Europe

During the Cold War, and despite the contrary image of relative seclusion suggested by states and political blocs, diverse groups of workers crossed for professional reasons not only national borders, but also moved from one political system to another. For shorter or longer periods of time, different kinds of workers crossed from Eastern European Communist states or from right-wing dictatorships in Southern Europe to Western Europe, but also from Western Europe to the East and South of the continent. These workers were part of transnational networks across otherwise (relatively) closed political borders and can be interpreted both as seemingly unpolitical in the ordinariness of everyday work life and as extraordinary in their defiance of the political order of national isolation. Covering cases as diverse as migrant workers, academics abroad, professionals on a foreign deployment or informal border crossings, this edited volume concentrates on personal and group experiences of these cross-border workers, on transnational networks, or on national labor policies. This focus on cross-border workers during the Cold War sheds light on the intricate entanglement of the East, South and West of Europe beyond political ideologies.

Sarah Lemmen, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain