Stereotyp o vykořeněném pohraničí a teritoriální identita v životních příbězích nejstarší generace obyvatel Českolipska

This article is based on field research focused on understanding the territorial identity of the inhabitants of the Česká Lípa region, and addresses the stereotype of the uprooted inhabitants of the border regions. The study uses biographical methods, as biographical narratives of respondents also reflect the changeability of the way the feeling of belonging to a certain territory is experienced. Territorial identity is not just the specific attitude of a person towards a variously-defined area in the physical sense, but also the social aspect. These two dimensions of spatial identification are constructed in the narratives of the border region's oldest inhabitants. Their interpretations described a clear effort to create a local community; they built rich social lives in their new homes, often replacing the missing network of relatives with the social ties of their employment collective. The lives of the border areas of the newly-settled border areas later experienced the same changes, which in the eyes of respondents caused people to turn within and become alienated, as experienced by the interior regions. However, there are certain aspects of the biographical interviews that refute the stereotype of border region people as being somehow rootless.