The Line Crossed Us 2023: New Directions in Critical Border Studies
Hosted (virtually) by the Lethbridge Border Studies Group, University of Lethbridge
8-9 June 2023 (all sessions Mountain Daylight Time = GMT-6)
Program current as of Tuesday May 30.
Register here by Wednesday June 6.
*Please note that you must register for the panels, keynote, and film screening separately.*
Thursday, June 8th
9:00-9:30. Julie Young: Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:30-10:30 Keynote address: “Bordering Migration and the Rights of Forced Migrants in Canada.” Dr. Idil Atak, Professor, Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University.
Register here for the Welcome & Keynote Address.
10:30-10:45 break, hosted by Sheila McManus
10:45-12:00 session I
Panel 1 Cross Border Identities
Chair: Hannah Odekina (MA program, Faculty of Health Sciences – Nursing)
Ritapriya Nandy, University of Hyderbad (India), “Marriage and Kinship Across Borders: Situating Identity and Belongingness in the Bordering Villages of Malda”
Anamika Roy, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), “Border and identity at the India-Bangladesh borderland”
Niklas Schulz, University of Lorraine (France), “How cultural third places build a cross-border identity in the French-Luxembourgish borderland”
Corinna Di Stefano, University Konstanz (Germany), “EU Outermost Borders in the Lesser Antilles: The Stratification of Different Migrant Groups within the Guadeloupean Border Regime.”
Panel 2 Borders within
Chair: Stephanie Hamilton PhD program, CSPT – History)
Merrill Hopper, King’s College London (England), “The matter of difference: Exploring the affective embodiment of differential ontology in walls”
Amy Cran, University of Lethbridge (Canada) “Racing Southern Alberta: Settler Colonialism and the Production of Racialized Geographies”
Tyler Correia, Acadia University (Canada) “The Question of Urban Space in Critical Border and Migrant Rights Research”
12:00-1:00 break, hosted by Julie Young
1:00-2:15 session II
Panel 3 Languages & Literatures
Chair: Davide Parfumi (PhD program, CSPT – English and Digital Humanities)
Kiran van Bentum, Freie Universitat (Germany), “The language border is the firing line!’ Framing linguistic threats by metaphors of war at the language border in Flemish Activist Journals”
Alan Graham Wobeser, University of Saskatchewan (Canada), “Greener Grass or Hippie Hovel?: The American Press and War Resister Space in Canada During the Vietnam War”
Panel 4 Statelessness
Chair: Emmanuel Desbordes (PhD program, Faculty of Health Sciences – Population Studies)
Areej Alshammiry, York University (Canada), “Decolonial Reflections on Statelessness Studies and Activism”
Jocelyn Kane, University of Ottawa (Canada), “In Defense of a Right to Non-Nationality”
Harini Sivalingam and Sharry Aiken, York University and Queen’s University (Canada), “Narratives of Harm and the case for detention abolition.”
Ifrah Arif, Carleton University (Canada), “Tiering of Citizenship: Identity of Migrants and Expats in the UAE”
2:15-2:45 break, hosted by Stephanie Hamilton
2:45-4:00 session III
Panel 5 Cross-Border Economies
Chair: Wael Nasser (MA, Geography)
J.J. Zhang, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), “Lifestyle displacements at Hong Kong border towns: morality, temporality, materiality”
Manishankar Prasad, North South Initiative (Kuala Lumpur), “Post Oil Migration Futures in the Khaleej: Thinking with/out Borders”
Reza Kheyroddin and Zainab Mahmoudi, Iran University of Science and Technology (Iran), “Functional Investigation of the Economic Effects of Border Market in Regional Labor Markets (Iraqi-Iranian Border Region)”
Panel 6 Solidarity & Refusal
Chair: Janelle Marietta (PhD program, CSPT – Dhillon School of Business)
Francesca Fortarezza, Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), “Negotiating the management of immigration at the Italian-Slovenian border: Institutional violence and contentious solidarity”
Giovanni Carranza, York University (Canada), “The Safe Third Country Agreement and Roxham Road: Exploring the cross-border network of refugee allies who challenge internal bordering practices”
Jorge Francisco Sánchez-Jofras, College of Social Science and Humanities at CETYS Universidad (Mexico), “On defending the cultural rights of migrant children at the United States - Mexico border”
4-4:30 break, hosted by Paul McKenzie-Jones
Friday, June 9th
8:30-9:45 session IV
Panel 7 Water Borders
Chair: Paul McKenzie-Jones
Anand Damodaran, University of Hyderbad (India), “Exploring The Modern History of the Indian Ocean as a Borderland”
Teverayi Muguti, Stellenbosch University (South Africa), “The river is a Natural Resource, not a Border”: Understanding the Tonga Borderland Community Responses to State Border Security Policy in Binga District of Zimbabwe, c. 1957 – 2017.”
Luna Vives, Universite de Montreal (Canada), “Search-and-Rescue obligations and geopolitical conflicts along the Atlantic route”
Arjun Chapagain, City University (Hong Kong), “Shifting Trajectories in Himalayan borderland: New Era of Nepal-China relations”
Panel 8 Border-making
Chair: Vivienne Ejetavbo (MSc program, Health Sciences)
Neha Meena, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India), “Negotiations of Migration and Bordering practices: Pakistani Hindu Immigrants in Western Rajasthan”
Abebe Yezihalem Tesfa, Addis Ababa University and Leipzig University (Ethiopia and Germany), “Transboundary (In) Security at the Frontiers of Horn of Africa: Analysing the Spatial Dynamics in the Borders of Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan”
Ebenezer Adegoke Omotosho, Chrisland University (Nigeria), “Border Community – Smuggler/Security Personnel Complexity Activities in Anti-Smuggling Along Nigeria – Benin Republic Corridor in West Africa.”
Esteban Acuña, Elizabeth Onasch, Amy Mountcastle, SUNY Plattsburgh (USA), “Bordering practices at Roxham Road: Asylum and migration negotiations at Quebec’s high-traffic irregular crossing”
9:45-10:15 break, hosted by Paul McKenzie-Jones
10:15-11:45 session V
Panel 9 Digital Borders
Chair: Davide Parfumi (PhD program, CSPT – English and Digital Humanities)
Alper Ekmekcioglu, Hacettepe University (Turkey), “How Street-Level Bureaucrats See the Role of Border Security Technology to Control the Mobility: Van Province Case”
Wael Nasser, University of Lethbridge (Canada), “Understanding Irregular Migration to Canada through Technology-Mediated Communication: YouTube as a case study”
Blair Peruniak, University of Ottawa (Canada), “‘Digital Nationhood’ and the Simulation of Migrant Rights”
Panel 10 Migrants and Refugees
Chair: Janelle Marietta (PhD program, CSPT – Dhillon School of Business)
Jasmin Lilian Diab, Lebanese American University (Lebanon), “What Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Syria Have Taught Us About the Politics of International Refugee Law”
Aushan Mammadzada, University of Ottawa (Canada), “The Arrival and Resettlement of Afghan Refugees in Ottawa Exploring Cultural/Political Challenges and Possible Policy Remedies”
Sarah Marshall, York University (Canada), “Health Care Advocates’ Role in Navigating Precarious Status Persons’ Access to Healthcare”
Claudia Donoso, St. Mary’s University (USA), “Failing to Protect Bare Life During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Forced Migrants as Carriers of the Virus”
11:45-12:15 break, hosted by Julie Young
12:15-1:30 session VI
Panel 11 Historicizing the Canada-US borders
Chair: Brendan Cummins (Instructor, Liberal Education and PhD student, CSPT – History)
Stephanie Laine Hamilton, University of Lethbridge (Canada), “Brewing Across the 49th Parallel: How Sick’s Lethbridge Brewing Responded to Prohibition on Both Sides of the Canada/US Border”
Desiree Valadares, University of British Columbia (Canada), “Dividing Lines and Uncertain Jurisdictions: Tribunals, Commissions, and the Canada-Alaska Boundary Dispute”
Hayden Nelson, University of Kansas (USA), “An Empire of Land”: Capitalism, Colonization, and the Commodification of the Milk River Valley, 1879-1889”
Panel 12 Deadly (Dis)Possession: Bordering as a Policing Regime
Chair: Julie Young
Alfonzo Mendoza, Arizona State University (USA), “Remembering Liberation: Migration and Abolitionist Temporalities.”
Cecilia Marek, Arizona State University (USA), “Ski Towns and Border Regimes: The (Dis)possession of Indigenous Peoples from Kinláni Dook’o’ooslííd Biyaagi.”
Rylie Seidl, Arizona State University (USA), “Carcerality as a Health Determinant: Resistance as Treatment.”
Rabindra Chaulagain, Acadia University (Canada) “Necroborder and Geography of Danger: A Critical Lens of Defining Borderlines”
1:30-2:00 break, hosted by Stephanie Hamilton
2:00-4:30 Film “Beyond Extinction.” 102 minutes, English, Snsəlxcín, 2022; Writer, Director, Producer: Ali Kazimi). Discussion and Q&A with Writer, Director, Producer Ali Kazimi & Smum iem Matriarch Marilyn James.
Register here for the Film Screening & Discussion/Q&A
4:30 Closing remarks, Sheila McManus
4:30 – 5 break, hosted by Paul McKenzie Jones
For more information please contact us at borderstudies@uleth.ca
Follow us on Twitter @LethBordStudies