Last Wednesday, following the Polish Day of Independence, our team gathered to read and discuss Spectral Borders: History, Neighbourliness and Discord on the Polish-Belarusian Frontier by Aimée Joyce (Sean Kingston Publishing, 2024). The session resulted in a heated exchange around the book’s main arguments and methods.
The discussion began with a short round of first impressions on the content of the book, followed by an open conversation about its key themes. We reflected on how the author’s approach relates to our research and considered how the book’s ideas might inform our project. Particular attention was given to the way the text handles questions of specters, visions of borderlands, and ethical challenges of anonymization and presentation of the fieldwork. Our debate was influenced by the fact that two of our team members (Karolina and Karina) conducted a fieldwork in the eastern Polish borderlands as well. We discussed how our positionality and our relationship with the region affected our reading of the book.
The conversation concluded with reflections on how this book contributes to ongoing questions about hauntology as a metaphor, method, and theoretical framework. Overall, the meeting provided space for thinking collaboratively about how scholarship continues to evolve through shared reading and discussion.