Relational Borders and (Cross-) Border Relations
14th UniGR-CBS Seminar Border Studies
25-26 June 2026, Saarland University
Borders are often imagined as lines of separation—demarcating territories, cultures, languages, identities, and political orders. Yet across contemporary Border Studies, borders are increasingly understood as relational and processual formations: historically situated, materially entangled, and continuously reconfigured through relations of power, mobility, temporality, and exchange that extend beyond the human alone. Approached in this way, borders do not simply divide; they emerge through ongoing interactions among people, infrastructures, environments, and cultural practices.
This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar invites contributions that explore relational borders and (cross-) border relations as perspectives for rethinking borders beyond static, territorial, or purely institutional frameworks.
This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar encourages dialogue across different geopolitical and epistemic contexts, including European, transatlantic, and American perspectives, as well as comparative and connective approaches that think borders across regions and scales.
- Call for Contributions (22/05/2026)
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We welcome contributions from Border Studies, the Humanities, American Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Geography, Linguistics, Literary and Media Studies, History, Political Theory, and the Arts, etc., as well as interdisciplinary, comparative, and practice-based research.
Contributions from early-career researchers are explicitly encouraged.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Relational theories of borders and bordering
- Cross-border relations and transnational entanglements
- Temporalities, spatialities, and chronotopes of borders
- Language, translation, and multilingual border practices
- Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives on borders
- Displacement, migration, diaspora, and embodied border experiences
- Aesthetic, narrative, and artistic engagements with borders
By centering relations in a broader sense, the conference aims to foster interdisciplinary exchange and to rethink borders as relational formations in motion, rather than fixed or self-contained entities.
Abstracts (approx. 250 words) for presentations, panels, roundtables or other formats may be submitted in English, German, or French and should be sent to borderstudies@uni-saarland.de by 22 May.
This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar is conceived as a joint event that brings together different research and exchange formats. It merges
- the UniGR‑CBS Border Seminar, a two‑day research workshop devoted to a specific border‑related theme
- a workshop within the East Partnership project “Border Chronotopes,”
- the UdS American Studies Graduate Forum, an open-topic platform for junior researchers, graduate students, and PhD candidates in American Studies (previous editions), co‑organized with the German‑American Institute (DAI).
Contact
Eva Nossem borderstudies@uni-saarland.de