PROTECTED AREAS ON THE SLOVENIAN– HUNGARIAN BORDER: A PLACE AND SPACE OF NATURE AND CULTURE 
JURIJ FIKFAK AND CSABA ME´SZA´ROS 
Őrse´g National Park (440 square kilometers) in Hungary Narodni park Őrse´g (440 km2) na Madžarskem je bil usta-was established in 2002, and Goričko Nature Park in novljen leta 2002, Krajinski park Goričko v Sloveniji (462 Slovenia (462 square kilometers) in 2003. Both protected km2) pa leto pozneje. Obe zavarovani območji zajemata regije areas encompass regions that were purportedly “ forgotten” by na obrobju dveh držav, ki jih je razvoj “pozabil.” Danes jih progress—on the margins—but are now considered idyllic dojemajo kot idilične krajine z bogato kulturno zgodovino in landscapes with rich cultural history and a high level of visoko stopnjo biodiverzitete: oboje lahko pomeni potencial biodiversity, which have the potential to function as centers za regionalni trajnostni razvoj. for regional sustainable development. Ključne besede: narodni park, zavarovano območje, Őrse´g, Keywords: national park, protected area, Őrse´g, Goričko, Goričko, slovensko-madžarsko sodelovanje Slovenian-Hungarian collaboration 
A place of contact, border, dispute, crossing, and meeting. A tripoint between three countries and three worlds that belonged to the same state until 1918, but somehow lived in two dif­ferent systems, and became part of three different states after the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. After 1945, the tripoint became a border where two of its parts—in a stricter and milder form—were a realization of the metonymic metaphor of Churchill’s Iron Curtain. With the collapse of the communist sociopolitical regime at the end of the 1980s and ultimately the 2007 expansion of the Schengen Area, this became a place of crossing and meeting. It may seem unusual at first glance, but all these processes and changes have affected or reshaped equally the socio-cultural and the natural environment. Hence, this area and the landscape is a result of socio-natural entanglement (Arias-Maldonado 2015: 56-58) . The area’s peripheral character or remoteness from the centers of largely centralized countries (i.e., Ljubljana, Budapest, Graz, or Vienna) was first reproduced in its marginalization and the views of “those up there,” and then also in demographic processes (i.e., depopulation) and ultimately in the exoticization of cultural and natural heritage. 
A new wave of human intervention in this area began around 2000, when “pristine” natural and cultural habitats were discovered within the context of general European trends. Thus, the following three parks or protected areas were established in their present form and size: Raab Nature Park in Austria (1996), followed by Őrség National Park in Hungary (2002), which developed from a former nature protection park, and finally Goričko Nature Park in Slovenia (2003). Two out of the three parks (the Slovenian and the Hungarian) were established based on a top-down approach, even though a bottom-up method was also used, whereas in Austria local initiatives dominated the process. All the parks were 
DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2019480101 TRADITIONES, 48/1, 2019, 7–26 
primarily focused on protecting natural resources, but via EU projects they have also become sensitized to the cultural practices of the local population. In any case, they define and at certain levels also limit the scope and focus of activities and lifestyles in the protected area. 
Intense cooperation between the parks was formalized by signing a letter of intent on the establishment of the Trilateral Raab–Őrség–Goričko Nature Park, in which the focus is primarily on applied projects, through which all three parks seek to facilitate the area’s development and profile (Bajuk Senčar 2019). The topics covered, e.g. the relationship between nature and culture, the periphery and center, and institutions and individuals, as well as cultural and natural heritage, and the history of the parks, methodological issues (cf. Ispán et al. 2018) have become a place where Slovenian and Hungarian researchers, mostly ethnologists and cultural anthropologists, meet and reflect. All of this required rethinking the largely ethnocentrically designed studies, listening to the other parties, and determining and reflecting upon various, so to speak, nationalization strategies and practices, which were somehow socialized largely though schools and other institutions and had become part of our common sense. 
Some of these reflections are also presented in this thematic issue edited by Tatiana Bajuk Senčar, Miha Kozorog, and Lászlo Mód. This includes the initial results of a collabo­rative, comparative cross-border research project,1 which is focused on the role of recently created protected areas—Goričko Nature Park and Őrség National Park—on either side of the Slovenian–Hungarian border. In many ways, the study builds on the findings of recent research projects: Triglav National Park: Heritage, Actors: Strategies, Questions, and Solutions (Fikfak et al. 2013, 2014, 2015); Mobility, Integration and Adaptation along the Hungarian-Slovenian Border (Slavec Gradišnik and Balogh 2013–2015), and An Examination of Triple Borders in the South-Western, South-Eastern, and North-Eastern Regions of Hungary, 2012–2015 (Turai and Mészáros 2015). The reflection presented in this issue was based on the cooperation between all actors, and it largely illustrates the basic frame and mindset of the project, or outlines the hypothetical directions and frameworks of the research, and partly also takes into account or refers to the findings of authors presented in this issue. 
Őrség National Park (440 square kilometers) in Hungary was established in 2002, and Goričko Nature Park in Slovenia (462 square kilometers) in 2003. Both protected areas encompass regions that were purportedly “forgotten” by progress—on the margins—but are now considered idyllic landscapes with rich cultural history and a high level of biodiver­sity, which have the potential to function as centers for regional sustainable development. 
The Slovenian-Hungarian team explores and partly realizes the significance of the two parks built along a radically shifting border—one that, with the countries’ accession 
The bilateral research project Protected Areas along the Slovenian–Hungarian Border is led by Jurij Fikfak (Slovenian side) and Csaba Mészáros (Hungarian side). The Slovenian researchers are financed within the project J6-8254 and the research program P6-0088. The Hungarian researchers are sup­ported by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office, project number: NKFIH SNN 126230. 
to the European Union (2004) and incorporation in the Schengen Area, has become more open than ever before. The research focus of the team is also the role of these parks in daily life from the perspective of the existing range of cultural practices and social actors. 
The proposed study on the significance of shifting boundaries in this area is informed by the region’s demographic, ethnic, linguistic, economic, and social features, as well as its particular history. From the tenth century onward, this was an ethnically diverse region in the westernmost portion of the Kingdom of Hungary. From the second half of the nineteenth century onward, it formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Slovenians primarily lived in the area between the Mura and Raba rivers (Prekmurje) as well as in Vas and Zala counties in present-day Hungary (the Rába Valley; Sln. Porabje, Hung. Szlovén Ra´bavide´k or Vendvide´k). Hungarians primarily lived in Vas County (the Őrség area). After the First World War, this inherently ethnically and socio-politically diverse but economically and environmentally fairly uniform area was divided among three new countries: Hungary, Austria, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The new border cut through the existing ethnic landscape, thus creating Slovenian and Hungarian ethnic minorities on either side of the border and severing established links and traditional ties between local centers and peripheries. Most of the region was once again under Hungarian rule during the Second World War; after the war, the Iron Curtain divided this region for many dec­ades. The fall of the Iron Curtain, Slovenia’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, and the accession of both Hungary and Slovenia into the European Union and the Schengen zone are the latest geopolitical developments that have reconfigured existing borders in this region. All of these events and interventions—shifting borders and border regimes—have changed the nature and identity of the borderlands and as well as the challenges that they face as peripheral areas. 
Slovenia and Hungary (together with eight other countries) joined the European Union in 2004; in 2007 both countries were included in the Schengen system, and the national borders that had political and real-life implications for local residents seemed to fade away. The question is what implications the now “non-existent” border has. The question of the significance of borders becomes even more relevant because the Slovenian–Hungarian border has also become the site of new institutional borders with the creation of two parks that were established to protect the area’s natural and cultural heritage and to define the cultural practices of the residents within the parks. These new institutionalized boundaries have already created new group dynamics and cost-benefit ambivalences of being “in” or “out” of the protected area. 
These protected areas were intended to create opportunities for a border region that suffers diverse economic and social problems due to its peripheral location (Mészáros 2015b). These parks were meant to introduce projects to encourage the region’s sustainable development, funded primarily from EU sources dedicated to cross-border cooperation and development among EU member states. This took on a new dimension with the Trilateral Raab–Őrség–Goričko Nature Park (2006), which encompassed the parks in the tri-border area between Slovenia, Hungary, and Austria. One of the park’s goals is to facilitate cross-border cooperation and sustainable development based on recasting the boundaries that have long shaped daily life for the borderland region’s residents. 
Our ethnological and cultural anthropological research is based on the argument that the predominant approach in Central European border studies has focused primarily on top-down processes and actors, including legal and political entities as well as (primarily) official and media discourses. This approach has resulted in the neglect of the practices and experiences of local stakeholders, social actors, and institutions, and even nonhuman actors. However, the meaning of borders extends well beyond the geopolitical realm into that of the symbolic. 
The intermingling of the two—combined with local, national, and global attitudes and the variety of practices and daily strategies employed by border-area communities— presents researchers with a plethora of issues to examine. Understanding the impact of the top-down creation of national boundaries, parks, cross-border measures, and policies on the one hand, and the similarities and differences among communities on either side of the border on the other, requires a study primarily based on a bottom-up approach that engages the complexity of the borderland’s history as well as its geographical, social, and cultural specificity. In this context, it is important to highlight the communist pasts of both countries, which are characterized by a low level of trust of the state and a consequent low embeddedness of state institutions in local communities (Roth 2007). 
In addition, the research is based on an integrated approach to studies of protected areas that also encompass issues of political ecology and biodiversity, employing the concept of the Anthropocene to transcend the modernist opposition between nature and culture (Descola 2013; Ingold 2000; Babai et al. 2019; Mészáros 2019). However, in their examination of borderlands as an Anthropocene phenomenon, researchers strive to develop a nuanced analysis of the role of human actors in the borderlands, according them the capacity to actively engage environmental and economic challenges while also identifying the actors (human and nonhuman) and factors that limit their agency. The proposed research can serve as a basis for analyzing the existing state of affairs in terms of established, impeded, and emergent patterns of livelihood strategies, resource management, and cross-border cooperation. Exploring the ways in which local residents and stakeholders (as well as non­human actors) on both sides of the national border negotiate the range of boundaries and divides that are mapped onto the region is key to understanding the shifting significance of these borders in daily life. 
The goal of the proposed project is to carry out a collaborative ethnographic study of the social life of Goričko Nature Park and Őrség National Park as an integrated area positioned across the Slovenian and Hungarian border and of the ways in which the exist­ing borders inform daily life. The study is to be carried out against the backdrop of the region’s specific economic, cultural, historical, and political circumstances as well as its shifting boundaries. The team is focused on four main research objectives. 
The first objective is an ethnographically based historical analysis of the border area (see Munda Hirnök and Slavec Gradišnik 2019; Ispán 2019), with attention to the role of the shifting border in defining the social and demographic landscape in terms of changing state systems, ethnic/minority communities, cross-border ties, migration practices, strate­gies of resource management, and livelihood strategies. 
The second objective is an ethnographic analysis of cultural and natural heritage regimes, practices, uses, and perceptions (Godina Golija 2018; 2019; Mód 2019; Simonič 2019), includ­ing existing economic, social, and symbolic practices and phenomena—both traditional (including agriculture and crafts) and contemporary (sustainable tourism and branding). 
The third objective is identifying and mapping out existing sets of social actors in the border area (Bajuk Senčar 2019; Mészáros 2019) defined by the two protected areas (social actors, institutions, organizations, and enterprises). This also includes an institutional analysis of the parks’ regimes of administration and of the common interests, values, and practices among actors—both at the national and cross-border level—that could potentially enhance interactions and collaborations. 
The final objective is an analysis of the center-periphery dynamics in the border area (Bajuk Senčar 2019). This involves examining and assessing the effects of boundary movements and changes in border permeability on the positioning of the borderlands in relative terms—particularly in terms of center and periphery. We consider the production of peripherality and centrality to be mutually constitutive social processes involving local and extra-local social and institutional actors. 
The research project is inspired by previous ethnological and anthropological literature on borders and borderlands, in particular research focused on the changing borders within post–Cold War Europe and the impact of EU expansion on them (Borneman 1992; Alvarez 1995; Donnan and Haller 2000; Scott 2012; Wilson 2012; Wilson and Donnan 2012; Mészáros 2015a). The proposed research also builds on the extensive body of ethnological and anthropological research that has focused on the broader impacts of the rising number of protected areas across the globe (West et al. 2006; Brockington et al. 2008; Bajuk Senčar 2013; Fikfak et al. 2014; Poljak Istenič and Kozorog 2014). In particular, this study focuses on the expanding roles of parks beyond strict conservation of natural and cultural heritage to become effective economic or cultural resources (Larsén 2008) or catalysts for local or cross-border development (Pezold and Vasiljević 2011; Markov 2015; Šiftar 2016). 
HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY OF THE BORDER AREA 
The relevance of studying the protected areas along both sides of the border lies in their shared geographical characteristics, history, and peripheral status, marked by demographic decline, poor economic development, temporary or permanent emigration, growing com­muting, and other modern cross-border or transnational processes. 
Previous studies in the social sciences and humanities provide a suitable framework for the project at hand. For the borderland area in Slovenia (the Goričko region), the main sources concerning Prekmurje are for its geography (Perko and Orožen Adamič 1998), general historiographic syntheses (Kovačič 1926; Zelko 1982, 1996; Fujs 2000; Jerič 2001; Hozjan 2004), detailed analyses of watershed periods and events in history (Slavič 1919; Novak 2004), demographic studies (Malačič 2016; Kovács 2016), analyses of migration processes (Fujs 2003; Olas 1973), and modern perspectives (Klopčič and Vratuša 2008; Luthar 2010; Godina Golija 2014). 
The traditional culture of the Pannonian region is discussed in general ethnological works on Slovenian folk culture (Ložar 1944; Grafenauer and Orel 1952; Novak 1960, 1975; Baš 2004) and in publications of older material (e.g., Košič 1992; Trstenjak 2006). Part of this region has also been examined from a topographic perspective (Šarf 1985). The basis for the research is studies that have focused on the park in terms of land use, heritage, tourism, and its reception among people (Šiftar 2016). 
The characteristics of the ethnically Slovenian part of the Rába Valley that lies within Őrség National Park have been exhaustively examined thanks to the continuity of research (Maučec and Novak 1945), which in the past was motivated by pronounced anti-minority politics (Munda Hirnök 2013). In her topography of this area, Marija Kozar-Mukič (1984) provides an overview of existing studies as well as the region’s shifting ethnological features, history, and sociodemographic structure; she also published an ethnological dictionary of Slovenians in Hungary (1996) and a volume on Felso.szölnök (1988). More recent works discuss population changes (Munda Hirnök 1997; Kozar-Mukič 2003) as well as the inclu­sion of residents in cohesive processes along the border (Piko-Rustia 2015) and in the parks (Lorber 2003; Munda Hirnök 2009; Šiftar 2016). 
The first volume about the Őrség region was published in 1818 (Nemesnépi Zakál 2002). Due to its unique legal position and settlement type (Mendöl 1963), a number of ethnographic studies focused on local architecture (Bi´ró 1975) and the relation between traditional economic activities and local landscape management (Porpáczy 1963; Miholics 1968; Ambrus and Csapó 2007). In the mid-twentieth century, the peripheral position of Őrség became increasingly apparent (Pável 1936; Moldova 1974), as mirrored in local dietary patterns (Kardos 1943) and the economy (Dömötör 1960). After the opening of borders, researchers focused more on the advantages rather than the drawbacks of the borderland position of Őrség (Göncz and Nagy 1998; Beluszky 2005; Gyuricza 2000, 2002) as well as on the opportunities and challenges provided by national parks (Metz 2008; Baranyai et al. 2016; Tóth 2004). Some of these aspects are examined in articles by Katalin Munda Hirnök and Ingrid Slavec Gradišnik (2019) and A´gota Ispán (2019), and also in part by Peter Simonič (2019). 
The historical overview and contextualization help researchers deduce the key factors influencing the development and changes in border regimes as well as the demographic and social features of the landscape within both protected areas. This region has been incorporated into various state systems in the past, and boundary shifts brought with them changes in resource management, livelihood strategies, and cross-border connec­tions. The borders not only affected the region’s economy and communication infra­structure, but also its ethnic communities, including the creation of borderland ethnic minorities. All of this contributed to the region’s peripheral nature. Studies of borders and borderlands call attention to the fact that border regions are often the site of “in between,” of changing roles, communication, and identity practices, not only in terms of ethnicity and nationality, but also of worldview and mentality. In this framework, it is important to ask what happened to this peripherality upon Hungary’s and Slovenia’s accession into the EU. All indicators point to the fact that the Hungarian northwest and Slovenian northeast remain peripheral regions in the twenty-first century, bereft of the attention of the center or the state, due in large part to misguided economic policies. At the same time, the region is also shaped by integration processes at the regional and transnational levels. 
Given the formative role that borders have played in the daily life of those living in the region, we pay close attention to how and when they have shifted, their essential characteristics (environmental, political, cultural, etc.), and their changing role in the past several decades. Reestablishing and maintaining cross-border communications as well as accepting the advantages of an “open,” “borderless” space is a process that residents are only beginning to adapt to. Not only state institutions but also local associations and non­governmental organizations have become important actors in these integrative processes. In the border region, this is being realized by the local Slovenian Development Agency in the form of concrete projects, including collaboration with Őrség National Park. Significant actors along the border include ethnic minority communities, each with its particular social and cultural capital. 
The establishment of protected areas on both sides of the border is an important feature in the area and represents an opportunity in light of contemporary integration processes. The borderland region is also included in the European Green Belt initiative, the core of the European ecological network, which “is the symbol of cross-border cooperation aimed at nature conservation and sustainable development.” Furthermore, most of Goričko Nature Park and all of Őrség National Park (Pezold and Vasiljević 2011: vii, 39) are included in the Natura 2000 network. The protected areas are territorial units linked to environmental, economic, social, and cultural resources, and capitalizing on these resources is one of the vital issues linked to realizing the multiple aims of the parks. 
The protected areas are still new features for local residents. A survey concerning the reception of the park (Šiftar 2016) among residents on both sides of the border demonstrated that two-thirds of those surveyed in the Rába Valley do not have an opinion concerning Őrség National Park. The administrative leaders in the Rába Valley part of the park come from Budapest, and they have weak contact with park residents (Mészáros 2015b). In this manner, Őrség National Park reproduces their relationship to the Rába Valley region. 
The bordering practices have a long history; the central part of the park, given its thousand-year continuity of Hungarian settlements and residents, has become a privileged site of Hungarian self-identification (Göncz and Nagy 1998). On the other hand, Goričko Nature Park is considered by Ljubljana to be more peripheral than is Őrség National Park from the perspective of Budapest. 
CULTURAL AND NATURAL HERITAGE OF THE BORDER AREA 
The study of cultural practices and environmental resources is to be carried out in an integral framework that transcends the Cartesian opposition between nature and culture (Ingold 2000; Descola 2013). The institution of parks is by definition equated with natu­ral and cultural heritage protection. The natural environment and traditional ways of life represent the foundations of sustainable development and not only of identity (Jezernik 2010). Researchers critically engage the concept of heritage (Bendix, Eggert and Peselmann 2012) and approach social actors and groups as active agents. 
The proposed project draws from ethnographic research on agriculture, ecological practices, and meadow management (Allaby 2006; Gibson 2009), which can be classified under ecological anthropology (Rappaport 1979, 2000; Bateson 1979; Dove and Carpenter 2008) and landscape anthropology (Bender 1993; Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995; Farina 2009; Lowenhaupt Tsing 2015). Together with land ownership, agriculture is a distinct topic in ecological anthropology (Cole and Wolf 1999/1974; Netting 1981; Minnich 1993; Abramson and Theodossopoulus 2000), regardless of its traditional, conventional, indus­trial, or organic character. The proposed project also takes into account studies relevant for examining the relationship between society and nature, including the ethnography (Knežević Hočevar 2013) of the mechanisms for transferring values and skills on local family farms. Researchers draw from studies on the extensive (traditional) land use in the Őrség region (Babai et al. 2015; Tóth et al. 2019) as well as the history of land use and the local perception of landscape changes (Konkoly-Gyuró et al. 2012). 
The study of the cultural heritage in Goričko Nature Park and Őrség National Park is founded on existing ethnographic studies of traditional and modern practices in farming as well as food production, preparation, and consumption from the nineteenth century onward (Košič 1992; Trstenjak 2006; Novak 1947, 1951; Kozar-Mukič 1984, 1996; Šarf 1985). The past decade has seen the publication of several in-depth ethnological studies on regional customs, economic activities, farming, and diet (Kozar-Mukič 2014; Munda Hirnök 2004; Pšajd 2009, 2014; Ravnik 2009). Local diet, traditional dishes, and regional foodstuffs are treated as a tangible world with great informative and symbolic power. Furthermore, regional food is an important marker of ethnicity and values (Buchli 2002; Rowlands 2002) as well as an increasingly important factor of sustainable regional devel­opment (Tschofen 2010). 
The proposed analysis includes existing research on the rich cultural heritage of the Őrség region as examined by numerous historians and art historians (Kogutowitz 1930; Kerny 2005) and which is linked to region’s special legal status (Vörös 1970; Mohos 2008), which accords the region special distinction (Nagy 1999). Local architecture and pottery have also been singled out as distinguished elements of Hungarian folk culture (Bi´ró 1975; Dömötör 1960) for research. 
The current knowledge of botanists, zoologists, ecologists, nature conservationists, and modern farmers seems to be insufficient for reliable and effective planning as well as for the realization of nature conservation in our diverse cultural landscapes (e.g., Antrop 2005; Poschlod et al. 1998). In this light, researchers investigate the biologically and culturally diverse cultural landscapes along the border and record traditional ecological knowledge (mainly locals’ knowledge of plants and invertebrates; Berkes 2012), which is presum­ably still in use in central and eastern European countries (see, e.g. Dolina et al. 2016 for Croatia; Molnár 2012, Molnár et al. 2016, and Varga et al. 2016 for Hungary; and Babai et al. 2014 for Romania). The researchers’ aim is to study local ecological knowledge of plant and animal species (cf. Kozorog 2019) as well as local land-use systems and traditional grassland (Tóth et al. 2019) and forest management. Knowledge of traditional land-use systems serves as a useful guide for nature conservation (management planning) and also offers acceptable solutions for local farmers. In addition, the research team analyzis the diversity of farming in the area (traditional, conventional, industrial, and organic farm­ing) within each branch of farming (e.g., Beaufoy and Marsden 2010), including past and recent grassland management practices that are sustainable and environmentally friendly (see, e.g., Poschlod et al. 1998; Babai and Molnár 2014; Babai et al. 2015) 
A typical product in the southwest part of the tri-border area is pumpkin-seed oil, an important element in the dietary culture of the local population (Baranyai 2012:  133-134). A pumpkin festival has been held every year since 1991 in Őrség, and it provides an oppor­tunity to celebrate traditions related to growing and processing pumpkins. On the other side of the border is the Krplivnik Festival, which also focuses on pumpkins. Many families are involved in pumpkin cultivation on the Hungarian and Slovenian sides of the border, and they collect and dry seeds and press pumpkin-seed oil for their own use as well as for distribution and sale of pumpkin-related products. The tri-border area provides particu­larly favorable sales opportunities for such enterprises because potential customers include Austrian and Slovenian tourists visiting the spas in the region. Growing pumpkins and the production of pumpkin-seed oil are thus widespread activities in the Hungarian–Slovenian border region, regardless of ethnicity, and are an increasingly significant trade and source of tourism income. Researchers analyze the pumpkin festivals as heritage productions on both sides of the border and further examine the roles of pumpkins, pumpkin growing, and the production of pumpkin-based products in the border area; they also ascertain the extent to which pumpkins have operated as a basis for cross-border cooperation as well as their further potential. 
In order to capture the complexity, similarities, and specific features of the two protected areas, researchers carry out micro case studies (cf. Simonič 2019). A study of a selected road linking Hungary and Slovenia provides an opportunity to analyze the changing dynamics, frequency, and intensity of ties between communities on both sides of the border. 
ACTORS AND STAKEHOLDERS IN THE BORDER AREA 
The proposed research also centers on the role of social actors and stakeholders that form heterogeneous social networks, play an important role in protected areas, recreate heritage, and have decisive roles in sustainable development strategies and practice. The analysis of the role of social actors in organizations is based on key studies in this vein (De Vries, Roe, and Tailleu 1999; Sackmann 1991), including those that focus on central actors in social groups and their psychological characteristics (Weber 1968). It is also built on the work of Slovenian authors that have focused on the formal and informal roles of actors in the case of non-governmental organizations (Podjed 2011; Fikfak and Bajuk 2014). 
The area to be researched and its ecosystems long operated within a single political entity, but it was split by twentieth-century political borders (Weber and Baskar 2002), which helped produce the triple (infrastructural) peripheral character of this area (in rela­tion to Budapest, Ljubljana, and Vienna) in terms of demographics and development. This also informed the regional identity of the natural and cultural heritage as well as its inhabitants’ living conditions. The project’s approach to studying the peripheral nature of border areas is inspired by Ardener’s work (1987) on borderlands as remote regions. It also draws upon existing research conducted more broadly on the construction of marginality and peripherality understood as a position resulting from mutually constitutive social and political processes with numerous possible centers—be they regional, national, or transna­tional (Herzfeld 1989; Kozorog 2013; Green 2005; Lowenhaupt Tsing 1993). 
Building upon the project’s historical study and analysis of social actors and stakeholders active in this borderland region, research in this section is concerned with identifying and analyzing existing productions of peripherality and insularity, focusing on them in relative terms and tracing them to corresponding practices of centrality. In particular, research­ers examine the relationship between changing border regimes and mutually constitutive productions of centrality and peripherality (Prokkola 2011). What used to be an integrated region within the Austro-Hungarian Empire first changed to a frontier periphery in the twentieth century due to a shifting border, the nature of which strengthened connections to certain centers and severed others as these borderlands found themselves in a changed geopolitical landscape. This changed significantly with the end of the Cold War, and once again with EU membership, at which time national borders that were once impermeable seemed to slip away, and the borderlands found themselves in a broader, reconfigured European landscape. 
The researchers focus on identifying select practices that shaped center–periphery dynamics in the borderland region before EU accession, taking into account the fact that different institutional actors assume the role of “center” vis-a-vis the periphery over time. In particular, the researchers focus on the practices through which the nation states exert their centrality and their corresponding production of the borderlands as a periphery, highlighting the similarities and differences on both sides of the border. 
However, the construction of peripherality is not presumed to be defined solely by a national or even regional “center” in a top-down manner on a passive social landscape, but the proposed research also focuses on practices through which social actors in the border­lands actively create peripherality, including as a livelihood strategy. For example, research­ers focus on strategic productions of marginality defined by tourism actors, who highlight and capitalize on the region’s distinctive natural heritage and traditions in their efforts to develop cultural tourism and eco-tourism, and to promote the region for sustainable tourism. 
EU PROJECTS IN THE BORDERLANDS AS A FORM OF CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION OR REGIONALIZATION? 
Researchers thus focus on identifying the most significant shifts in border regimes that accompanied EU membership and the changes that EU funding has brought to what used to primarily be areas defined by policies and practices implemented at the (national) centers. This case study focuses on the impacts of EU membership in terms of center–periphery dynamics through the lens of EU-funded cross-border projects and borderland projects. EU-funded projects are an ideal lens for examining cross-border cooperation because they require a consortium of partners from both sides of the border to work on a single issue or set of issues for a considerable length of time. Partners include municipalities, companies, non-governmental organizations, minority cultural associations, and the administrations of protected areas. In analyzing the various funding possibilities available for the borderlands since accession, the case study follows EU projects from their inception onward, through preparation, implementation, and impact, by analyzing previous project documentation, by using participant-observation, and through interviews with members of the project consortia. 
The case study (Bajuk Senčar 2019) includes a selection of projects and focuses on how the projects were defined and the sort of cross-border and borderland cooperation that the project was meant to encourage. In addition, the researcher identifies the common interests and priorities upon which cross-border cooperation in these projects is based (nature con­servation and sustainable tourism development) and how they are defined. As another case study about select development projects (the construction of a road, and the renovation of a house) on the Hungarian side of the border demonstrates, national parks play a pivotal role in absorbing and distributing internal and external funding in Hungary (Mészáros 2019). The study also points out that EU and domestic development projects aiming at dissolving borders between states, between protected and non-protected areas as well as between local communities and tourists/visitors may also create disruptions and tensions. 
An important question is how these projects are evaluated by park residents and other borderland actors. Which projects are significant for them and why? What do such projects imply for parks and the broader regions where they are positioned as potential centers? Do parks emerge as potential centers for development? 
The first answers are here. On the one hand, cooperation on projects changes the approaches and solutions established to date, using the language of EU projects to help shape new meanings and highlights in solutions. On the other hand, a challenge that still remains is how to harmonize the relatively global language, problems, and solutions that the centers of power—be it in Brussels, Ljubljana, or Budapest—also offer through fund­ing applications, with the local needs and desires, which often remain unaddressed. One possible solution is definitely even greater connection and intense interaction between all local, regional, and cross-border actors. 
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ZAVAROVANA OBMOČJA OB SLOVENSKO-MADŽARSKI MEJI 
Raziskovalni projekt o zavarovanih območjih ob slovensko-madžarski meji je zasnovan kot sodelovalna in primerjalna čezmejna raziskava o vlogi nedavno ustanovljenih zavarovanih območij – Krajinskega parka Goričko in Nacionalnega parka Őrse´g. Osredinjena je na premi­kanje mej in ločnic na območju dinamičnih zgodovinskih procesov z demografskimi, etničnimi, jezikovnimi, ekonomskimi in socialnimi posebnostmi. 
Podlaga projektu je bogata etnološka in antropološka literatura o mejah in obmejnih območjih, posebej dela raziskovalcev, ki so bili pozorni na spreminjanje mej v Evropi po padcu železne zavese in na vpliv širitve EU na državne in regionalne meje (Borneman 1992; Donnan in Haller 2000). Posebno vprašanje je tudi obrobni značaj mejnih območij kot zakotnih in nepomembnih (Ardener 1987). 
Pri projektu sodeluje skupina slovenskih in madžarskih raziskovalcev. Upoštevajo dozdajšnje obravnave različnih izkušenj slovenskega in madžarskega prebivalstva, ustvarjanja obrobnih krajin in manjšin, nastalih s spreminjanjem političnih in mejnih ureditev: npr. raziskave madžarske manjšinske politike (Munda Hirnök 2013), zgodovinske obrobnosti Slovenskega Porabja, kulturnih, ekonomskih in družbenih posledic v življenju slovenske manjšine (Kozar­Mukič 1984, 1988, 2003). V Őrse´gu so bile preučene zgodovinske in kulturne posebnosti območja glede na njegovo tisočletno kontinuiteto in Őrse´g kot regija madžarske samoidentifikacije (Göncz in Nagy 1998), ki je od 70. let prejšnjega stoletja postajala izrazito turistična (Beluszky 2005; Baranyai 2012). Projekt se opira na razvejen korpus etnoloških in antropoloških raziskav o širših učinkih mej na vse večjem številu zavarovanih območij po svetu (West idr. 2006), tako pozitivnih kakor negativnih. Projektne raziskave so pozorne posebej na širše vloge parkov, ki presegajo ožje varovanje naravne in kulturne dediščine/vrednot; te lahko namreč v zavarovanih krajinah postanejo učinkovit ekonomski/kulturni vir (Larse´n 2008) in usmerjevalec vzdržnega lokalnega razvoja. Raziskovalci, ki so preučevali širšo vlogo zavarovanih območij, so opozorili na napetosti, do katerih pride zaradi nasprotujočih pričakovanj in spornih pomenov parkov. Raziskava se zaradi tega opira na študije, osredinjene na dinamiko med deležniki (Bajuk Senčar 2014; Fikfak idr.. 2014, 2015) in raziskave o trilateralnih parkih ob madžarski meji (Turai in Me´sza´ros 2015). Poleg tega že opravljene analize temeljijo na integriranem pristopu pri raziskavah zavarovanih območij, politični ekologiji in raziskavah biološke raznovrstnosti ter s tem upoštevajo koncept antropocen, ki presega modernistično nasprotje med naravo in kulturo (Ingold 2000; Descola 2013) in deluje kot analitični okvir za preučitev vrste mejnih režimov na območju, vključno z določitvijo mej zavarovanih območij. Omogoča tudi razširitev pogleda na lokalne akterje, skupnosti, ustanove in pomembne ne-človeške dejavnike v povezan okvir. 
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jurij Fikfak, Research Advisor ZRC SAZU Institute of Slovenian Ethnology Novi trg 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia, fikfak @zrc-sazu.si 
Dr. Csaba Meszaros Research Center for the Humanities, Institute of Ethnology Toth Kalman Street 4, H-1097 Budapest, Hungary, csabimes@gmail.com