Borders in Crisis: Border Struggles and Border Violence in a Global Perspective (2023)

The 9th Seminar of the UniGR-Center for Border Studies organised by Saarland University took place on-site (D4.1) and online on the 11th and 12th May 2023.

Description

“Borders in Crises: Border Struggles and Border Violence in a Global Perspective"

Within the fields of Border Studies, researchers have observed an increasing complexity of borders (cf. Wille 2021; Wille, Fellner, and Nossem, forthcoming 2023): on the one hand, as unstable concepts with shifting meanings, metaphors, and paradigms of thinking, on the other, as hard facts, fortified geographical shells, which are hard to penetrate and which are often deadly (Jones 2017). We can observe contradicting, though sometimes simultaneous debordering and rebordering practices. We have noticed the growing importance of the border as a discursive tool in political debates, and we have witnessed an increasing weaponization of the border, encompassing both the militarization of the border as well as the transformation of the border into a deadly weapon of political power play.

As semi-permeable sites of struggle, allowing only the crossing of specific goods and trade assets as well as specific groups of people while excluding others (Mezzadra/Neilson 2013), particularly the outer borders of Europe and North America have drawn the attention of the public eye over the last decade, both e.g. in the Mediterranean as EUrope’s outer border and in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands in North America. From “Build the Wall” and “Kids in Cages” to “Biden’s Border Crisis,” the border has been at the epicenter of ever polarizing political debates in the U.S. Negotiations about colonial land grab and Indigenous rights to land also circle around borders, with borders turning into tools of expropriation, displacement, and genocide. On the other side of the Atlantic, while still trying to learn the lessons from the unexpected rebordering in Europe during Covid, Europe was shocked by the Russian all-out war in Ukraine in February 2022, where Russia deliberately tries to ignore and modify existing state borders. News about this war pushed Europe’s cruel border and migration politics and deaths in the Mediterranean into the background of the public eye. Consequently, the struggle and the violence arising from (the contestability of) the border merit a more in-depth analysis.

Program

This UniGR-CBS Border Seminar “Borders in Crisis” will bring together topics focusing on borders and crisis from American, European, and global perspectives. In order to cover such a broad spectrum of research and expertise, the UniGR-CBS Seminar will bundle efforts and host this year’s UdS American Studies Graduate Forum with the homonymous title. Furthermore, this UniGR-CBS Seminar is very honored to offer a platform to the Volkswagen research project group.

The first day of the seminar will bring in external expertise to the UniGR-CBS seminar: junior researchers and experienced scholars will present their work in four panels within the framework of the UdS American Studies Graduate Forum 2023. Furthermore, the five Ukrainian scholars of the Volkswagen research project “Borders in Crisis: Discursive, Narrative, and Mediatic Border Struggles in Ukraine, Europe, and North America” will share insights into their field of expertise and present on the topics of Borders in Crisis in the context of the war in Ukraine.

During the second day of the seminar, the UniGR-CBS Seminar participants can discuss and elaborate the input they received on the first day. Then the renowned border, migration, and globalization scholar Prof. Dr. Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair of The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics will give a keynote and discuss questions of borders and crisis with the UniGR-CBS Seminar participants.

The UniGR-CBS Seminar offers room for exchange and invites interested colleagues to learn more about the activities of the UniGR-CBS and its working groups during an “Open Space” session. The UniGR-CBS Seminar welcomes the working groups of the UniGR-CBS to meet in public or closed work meetings. The UniGR-CBS Seminar concludes with the graduation ceremony of the Master for Border Studies.

Thursday, 11 May 2023

09:00 – 09:30	Arrival of the Participants, Coffee
09:30 – 10:00	Words of Welcome, Introduction of Participants, Presentation of the Program Astrid M. Fellner	DE, EN, FR
10:00 – 11:30	Panel 1 – ASGF23 & Border Seminaire Borders in Crisis & The War in Ukraine Chair: Alina Mozolevska Zaporozhets, Halyna: "The Elimination of Borders for Ukrainian Scholars in Europe and the U.S. in War Times" Stodolinska, Yuliya: "American Universities' Reactions to the Border Violence in Ukraine: 'Statements on Ukraine' in Social Media" Vasylieva, Nadiia: "Linguistic Features of Ukrainian War Memes" [online]	EN
11:30 – 13:00	Panel 2 – ASGF23 & Border Seminaire Border Violence & Cross-Border Identities in U.S.-American Literature Chair: Svitlana Kot Schlimbach, Bärbel: "Reshaping Identities in the American West: C. Pam Zhang's How Much of these Hills is Gold" Starshova, Oksana: "Is Global City Possible? Teju Cole's Wanderings Across Cultures, Histories, and Epistemologies" Kolesnyk, Ganna: "The Depiction of Violent Borders in The Poppy War by Rebecca F. Kuang"	EN
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:00	Panel 3 – ASGF23 & Border Seminaire *Indigenous Borderlands* Chair: Bärbel Schlimbach Gerhard, Atalie: "Conceptual Borderlands: North American Indigenous Discourses that Link/Separate Violence Against Women with Extractivism" Blank. Frederik: "German Canadians and Borderlands: German-Indigenous Encounters on the Canadian Plains, 1900-1930"	EN
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee Break	EN
15:30 – 16:30	Panel 4 – ASGF23 & Border Seminaire Borders and Current Soci(et)al Crises Chair: Yuliya Stodolinska Sadozaï, Mélanie: "Opportunities and Frustrations: The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Taliban's Presence Along the Border Between Tajikistan and Afghanistan" [online] Aubry, Lola: "Cultivating and Inhabiting the Trouble: Everyday Uses of Crisis in Parisian Welcome Cultures"
16:30 – 18:00	Panel 5 – ASGF23 & Border Seminaire Borders in Crisis: Ukraine Panel of the research project founded by Volkswagen foundation Chair: Astrid M. Fellner & Eva Nossem Kot, Svitlana: "Border Trajectories and Border Chronotopes through the Lens of Childhood in Alan Gratz's Refugee" Shestopalova, Tetiana: "Crossing Borders: The Ukrainian Literary and Publishing Projects of Yurii Larynenko in the US" Biloshapko, Valeriia: "The Vision of Borders in the Work of American Writer William T. Vollmann and Polish Writer Andrzej Stasiuk" Polishchuk, Olha: "The Multiple Trajectories of Oksana Lyaturynska's Migrant Experiences: Europe - USA" Mozolevska, Alina: "The Cultural Construction of the Russo-Ukrainian War in American and European Populist Discourses"	EN

Friday, 12 May 2023

09:00 – 09:30	Arrival of the Participants
09:30 – 10:30	Presentation UniGR-CBS, Working Groups, Outlook to the next UniGR-CBS Border Seminaire Christian Wille, Working Groups, Grégory Hamez	DE, EN, FR
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:00	Keynote Prof. Dr. Saskia Sassen (Columbia U, London School of Economics) “Towards new migrant cities at the crossroads: an unsettling prospectus on several levels but one that is rich in realism and potential”	EN
12:00 – 13:00	Lunch Break
13:00 – 14:30	Open Space New Initiatives & Collaborations within the UniGR-CBS	DE, EN, FR
14:30 – 16:00	Working Group Meetings Bordertextures, Border Temporalities, GRETI, Labor & Education, Spatial Planning,…	DE, EN, FR
16:00 – 17:00	MABS Graduation Ceremony Ines Funk Jordi Bakker: “Weaponizing migration and reinforcing border protection” Presentation of the MABS alumni association Award ceremony Reception	DE, EN, FR