Category: Seminar Series

Seminar: Snapshots of the Border Walls

Date: 17 September 2018. 15.00-17.00
Venue: Spelbomskan. Aula Magna, Stockholm University

With Minimal Force
Adania Shibli (Writer/Birzeit University)

In light of the political, economic, spatial, and social realms in Palestine/Israel, many art works that were created over the last two decade, had been shaped by colonial and power techniques implemented by the Israeli authorities and military. Such techniques are in particular targeting the movement of Palestinians, and introduced either as daily routine or collective punishment. This seminar will bring discuss examples from the field of art, and how visual art works and even literary texts do interact with such techniques and subvert the very relations they generate by redefining individuals’ positions.

Privilege, Space and Art at the US-Mexico Border
Markus Heide (Uppsala University)

I will introduce sites at the US-Mexico borderline that provide space for the performance of activities of social privilege, such as tourism, international trade, sports, and the arts. These places, in their distinct ways, create an atmosphere of being removed from the immediate perils and evils of the borderlands: illegal trade and undocumented immigration. At the same time the three places are shaped by the militarization of the U.S.’ Southern border since the 1990s and the post-9/11 security regime: The closed and guarded fence and border patrol agents are visible and mark the places as part of the border blockade. Although the three distinct places contribute to cross-border contacts and exchange, they, as well as their use by border people and visitors, contribute to bordering practices and to normalizing the militarized border. How are forms of mobility constructed in the borderlands? What kind of mobilities are welcome by the border regimes? What kind of hierarchies of mobility do the controlled borderlands create?

Managing Animal Movements And Quarantine across The Mediterranean: Outline of a Parallel Border Regime

 Professor Sarah Green (University of Helsinki)

People have designed procedures and techniques to control the movement of living animals and, as importantly, to control the movement and spread of animal diseases, across space for centuries. Yet, while the borders that manage and attempt to control the movement of people have received enormous attention from researchers, including anthropologists, the parallel system that manages the movement of animals appears to be virtually invisible – except when the French President wants to send a horse to the Chinese President; or, occasionally, when animal activists get headlines in their ongoing attempts to prevent the long-distance transportation of livestock; or, more often, when an infectious disease breaks out (foot and mouth, bird influenza, swine flu, BSE, etc). Even when these stories appear in the media, little is said about the border regimes that are supposed to regulate the movement of live animals and attempted control over the spread of their diseases. Continue reading Managing Animal Movements And Quarantine across The Mediterranean: Outline of a Parallel Border Regime

Crisis of Images

Please pay attention that the time of the event is 17.00-18.30 

In-Conversation

Crisis of Images

The figure of refugee is formed by visual representations in the form of abundant images in the press, on TV, in documentaries, cinema, and even in coffee-table books. In some images we see defaced people packed on boats, in others we see de-named faces of suffering men and women. The visual representation visiblizes and invisiblizes them at the same time. What do these images tell us about our fantasies/imagination, the present economy of psychosocial and political (in)visibility? And about the politics of fear shadowing the current European refugee regime of subtle but effective dehumanization? What are the ethical implications? And how the refugee can disrupt this regime of representation and stop being seen as “problem people”? These questions and other related questions will be discussed by scholars, artists, and filmmakers.

Continue reading Crisis of Images