Beyond borders? Academic and activist research at EU borders

WHO?

Federico Alagna (Scuola Normale Superiore), Kamila Fiałkowska (University of Warsaw and Badaczki i Badacze na Granicy), Giulia Fabini (University of Bologna) and Martina Tazzioli (University of Bologna)

WHAT?

This roundtable focuses on borders and calls for a dialogue that brings empirical, conceptual and philosophical perspectives together. While Frontex has increased its workforce to control the external borders next to national border guards, it is also becoming increasingly normal to encounter border controls within the Schengen area itself. External and internal borders of the European Union (EU) are spaces of daily violence and illegal pushbacks, but also of daily resistance from those on the move and their supporters. How do we tell the story of this resurgence of borders in Europe? Have they always been so present, or are they just more visible? What is our role as researchers and/or activists doing research at/on borders? 

This roundtable invites speakers to share their experiences – as academics and/or activists – at the internal and external borders of the EU. Through a roundtable format, the event aims at: 

• Sharing field experiences about the situation at particular borders in Europe
• Discussing the changing nature of borders and of (re/de)-bordering practices and their effect on people on the move and locals
• Reflecting collectively on more critical understandings of borders and migration
• Discussing how it is possible to navigate political engagements within academic institutions Each participant will make a presentation of their research and/or activist experience of 10 minutes, after which we will open the floor for discussion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

• Giulia Fabini is a Junior Assistant Professor in the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Bologna. She holds a PhD in Law and Society from the University of Milan and was a student researcher at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at UC Berkeley. Giulia’s research focuses on border control and the interaction between migrants and the police, migrant struggles, immigration courts, and the prison system from a gender perspective. She is currently collaborating on two research projects on police women and the prison police. Giulia acted as the Assistant Editor for the European Journal of Criminology (2017-2020) and she is a member of the editorial boards of Studi sulla questione criminale, Rivista Antigone, and Justice, Power and Resistance. As an activist, she is an observer of Antigone Association and has the authorization to visit prisons in Emilia-Romagna region. She is part of the European Society of Criminology, the European Group for the study of deviance and social control, and the Law and Society Association. Her most recent publication is Governing Immobility in the COVID-19 Crisis in Italy: Non-conforming Behaviors of Migrants Confronting the New Old Processes of Othering

• Kamila Fiałkowska is a researcher at the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw and one of the coordinators of the Researchers on the Borders (Badaczki i Badacze na Granicy – https://www.bbng.org/) – a grassroots, inter-university, interdisciplinary research network created in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border. Kamila obtained her PhD in 2018 at the Faculty of Political Studies and International Relations at the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses on gender relations in migratory settings, masculinity studies and family relations, as well as the construction of national and gender identities.

• Martina Tazzioli is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Cultures at the University of Bologna. She holds a PhD in Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Pisa. Martina’s research is situated at the crossroads of Political Geography, Critical Migration and Border Studies, and Political Philosophy. She is currently working on three projects: One on memory of border controls and migrants’ struggles, a related project about counter-mapping and legal geographies of border violence on the central Mediterranean route, and a research project about social reproduction activities in camps, with a focus on Greece. Her latest publications include Border abolitionism: migration containment and the genealogies of struggles (2023), The Making of Migration. The Biopolitics of Mobility at Europe’s Borders (2019), and Spaces of Governmentality: Autonomous Migration and the Arab Uprisings (2015).

• Federico Alagna is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Political Science and Political Sociology in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna. Federico’s research focuses on the politics of migration in the EU and Italy, with specific reference to the migrant smuggling policy regime, the role of civil society actors in the production of migration policies from below, the criminalisation of people on the move and solidarity initiatives. He is a political activist, mostly in the migrant solidarity and right to the city movements, and is part of the sea rescue initiative Mediterranea Saving Humans. In the past, Federico has also served as Deputy-Mayor for Culture and Public Education of the City of Messina.