How should we discuss trans-border identities across the Franco-German-Swiss border area? Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this article aims to establish a conceptual framework in order to apprehend and study border regions. Focusing on the Franco-German-Swiss border area usually designated as the ‘Upper Rhine’, the article seeks to show how actors' strategies – mainly those of institutional agents – articulate with, complement, or contradict the habitus (i.e. the practices and materialities of everyday life), giving rise to a diverse set of identity constructions and sketching a more or less precise contour of this region, and of border territories in general.