AltSOU

Pricey silence! Are The EU values at stake in the Southern Neighbourhood?
2024-05-14 10:00 - 12:00 (Europe/Rome) | Sala del Capitolo (Badia) + on zoom, European University Insitute, Florence, Italy
Joint event organised by STG Fellows
WHO?

Abbas Sibai, Policy Leader Fellow
Louis Blin, Visiting Fellow, Robert Schuman Centre
Nicholas Milanese, Visiting Fellow, Florence School of Transnational Governance
Elena Asciutti, Coordinator for External Relations, European University Institute

WHAT?

This talk will discuss the EU’s approach to the Southern Neighborhood, focusing on Lebanon and Gaza, where pressing geopolitical dynamics impact stability, security, and prosperity.
Against economic crises, political instability, and humanitarian concerns, this talk aims to assess whether the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) adequately reflects its values and interests in promoting positive change. Panelists will offer diverse perspectives and actionable recommendations and provide insights into geopolitical factors shaping the ENP’s trajectory. The talk will invite attendees from policymaking, academia, and development practice to explore innovative strategies for EU-civil society collaboration and discuss practical solutions tailored to the region’s needs.
REGISTRATION
Registration via the EUI event page: https://www.eui.eu/events?id=568037

Venue

Political humanitarianism, the Black Mediterranean and border violence
2024-05-21 09:00 - 10:30 | Sala Triaria (Villa Schifanoia) + on zoom, Florence, Italy
WHO?
Beppe Caccia (Mediterranea), David Yambio (Alliance for the Refugees in Libya), Ida Danewid (University of Sussex), Vivian Gerrand (Deakin University) and others!
WHAT?
This unconference panel is an ‘egalitarian exchange of questions’, which aims to bring humanitarian organisations into dialogue with university-based activists working for the rights and dignity of migrant people within and beyond Europe. Among other questions, we will discuss what the historical role of mobility controls has been in capturing and disciplining a mobile workforce, and how activist-academic discourse can build practically applicable counter-narratives to this. We will critique and formulate political alternatives to today’s humanitarian discourse by exploring non-statist forms of care and communality seen among Mediterranean communities. We will examine new possibilities thrown up by the way the Black Mediterranean and ‘bordered’ violence have changed over the past 20 years. We will centre the role of refugees as protagonists in the fight for human rights, particularly in the context of Libyan refugees in Italy. These questions, collectively reflected upon, will feed into the creation of an action plan for use by university communities who wish to bridge the gap between academia, humanitarian activism and journalism for migrant rights.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Ida Danewid is a social and political theorist based in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex. Her research interests are in anticolonial political thought, the black radical tradition, gender studies, and histories of internationalism “from below.” She is the author of Resisting Racial Capitalism: An Antipolitical Theory of Refusal (Cambridge University Press).

Vivian Gerrand is a scholar of alternative / counter narratives, migration, citizenship, postcoloniality, radicalisation and resilience who has been studying cultures of migration in Italy since 2003. She lives with European heritage on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), where she was born.

David Yambio (Alliance for the Refugees in Libya) – To be completed

Beppe Caccia (Mediterranea)- To be completed

REGISTER HERE

Venue

Beyond borders? Academic and activist research at EU borders
2024-05-21 11:00 - 12:30 | Sala Triaria (Villa Schifanoia) + on zoom, Florence, Italy
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.

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Venue

Teach-in on de/coloniality and our place in Europe
2024-05-21 14:00 - 15:30 | Villa Schifanoia’s Gardens, European University Insitute, Florence, Italy
Who?
Carla Vitantonio
What?
In this teach-in session, I would like to invite participants to build together a reflection on coloniality in our own system and culture. I am assuming that most of us come from different places, located at variable distance from the mainstream European culture (system, society, model, whatever), and from this unique perspective each one will contribute to the session, following Haraway’s inspiration (1988, 2016) and creating a temporary web of kin.For this purpose, I will give a short theoretical introduction based on the colonial matrix of power (Quijano 2000, 2007), and embodied by my own experience of queer, stigmatized woman, migrant and daughter of migrants.If you are inspired, before joining the session you can listen to my podcast “Living decoloniality”.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Independent researcher, humanitarian and development professional, performer: Carla Vitantonio focuses, throughout her work, on coloniality and on its impact on communities, practices and knowledges. She lived and worked in North Korea, Myanmar, and Cuba, engaging in community disaster preparedness, social justice, and crisis management. In 2022 she started “Living decoloniality”, a toolkit that collects decolonial practices through the aid sector, which became a podcast, and is produced by the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership. She is a member of the board of the International Humanitarian Studies Association. In 2022 she was awarded the honor of Cavaliere all’Ordine della Stella d’Italia for her action in the humanitarian sector.Her current research looks at coloniality and subalternity in Italy.

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Venue
