The Shifting Border: Legal cartographies of migration & mobility

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

The border is one of the most salient issues of our times. Traditionally, we think of a border as a hard, static line. Recently, however, bordering techniques have broken away from the lines on the map as governments have developed sophisticated legal tools to limit the rights of migrants both before and after they enter the country’s territory. The consequent detachment of state power from any fixed geographical marker has created a new paradigm: the shifting border, an adjustable legal construct untethered in space. This dramatic transformation unsettles assumptions about waning sovereignty while also revealing the limits of the populist push toward border-fortification. While the accelerating mobility of borders typically cuts against the rights of those who cross them, it also presents a tremendous opportunity to creatively rethink states’ responsibilities to migrants. The Shifting Border: Legal cartographies of migration & mobility: Ayelet Shachar in Dialogue proposes a new, functional approach to human mobility and access to membership in a world where borders, like people, have the capacity to move.

Sub Unit

• Division 52: Migration & Citizenship

Chairs

• Elizabeth F. Cohen Syracuse University

• Noora Anwar Lori Boston University

Presenters

• Ayelet Shachar University of Toronto

• Sarah Jane Fine King's College London

• Avery Kolers University of Louisville

• Patti Tamara Lenard University of Ottawa

• Colleen Murphy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Alexander Sager Portland State University