The ground study I would like to use as a basis for this project is an oral history study which I have been undertaking on behalf of my institute (LBI in Vienna) and which took place in a small Czech town at the Austrian border. Its main theme was centered on the perception of the Iron Curtain and of the Austrian neighbour, during the Cold War but also since communism's demise.

I would now like to shift the emphasis from the « living at the border » aspect to an everyday-history of the practices of domination and resistance in this highly « communist » town – although the two aspects are inseparably linked insofar as it was so « tough » precisely because it was so close to the border. In other words, I would like to shift the focus from the « border » to communism as seen from the « bottom », to domination as a social practice, to « normality » and its limits.