This workshop aims at bridging together critical border studies with migration studies and social movement studies, as those fields have been rarely put into dialogue. To that end, it investigates the notion of border and its interaction with collective and individual solidarity initiatives, exploring these from a theoretical and empirical perspective.

In the morning session, three prominent scholars in the field of critical border studies, crimmigration and migration and security studies discuss borders intended as spaces of contention and not only as territorial boundaries between states or state-like political entities. In doing so, they investigate those solidarity activities that take place at the borders in the European and US areas to support people on the move attempting to cross them, also reflecting from such perspective on smuggling activities and on their criminalization.

In the afternoon session, we bring the discussion to a policy and operational level, hosting a roundtable with representatives from solidarity groups and networks operating at the French-Italian border, along the Western Balkan route and in the Mediterranean sea. They engage in a debate on how they conceive of their activities (as political, contentious, humanitarian?) and the connected implications.

More info at: https://www.sns.it/it/evento/contesting-borders