Blog | Migration

CRC 1265 research fellow Ata Messan KOFFI in conversation with Zoé Perko Making a film is a political act. Writing and production play out in a political arena with diverging […]

The authors of this blogpost are migration researchers. While doing research on the unequal distribution of mobility rights around the world, they make use of the privileges accorded to them by the very same regime. Their position has allowed them to travel to six countries within the last year. Inspired by stories from their past and current fieldwork, the authors reflect on their research within an unequal mobility and migration regime, which has become much more than a mere research object to them.

A thin line between ethics and aesthetics haunts these reflections on field research in an African city, approached through the positionality of a researcher from a European context. Based on some visual impressions encountered during the fieldwork, the researcher Francesca Ceola retraces the process of reorientation in a place geographically and culturally very far away from her habitat recognizing what she knows in what she sees. In doing so, she contests the abstraction of “going to do fieldwork” as separate from everyday scientific practices.

As ontological or theoretical insight, methodological approach, analytical perspective, ethical standpoint and political praxis, intersectionality has shed light on how the entanglements of different regimes of power (sex/gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, etc.) shape experiences, processes of becoming and social relations. However, can intersectionality also address questions of space and geography? Why is it so important to bring together intersectionality and spatiality? How can we research intersectionality in political geography? This blogpost constitutes an attempt to answer all these queries drawing from the observed potential of intersectionality to delve into personal (and political) situated experiences of mobility through space.

Territorial borders and border control are back on the political agenda. Globalization has not led to a world without borders. On the contrary, states have expanded the bordering function by fortifying borders, externalizing border control, and introducing digital “smart borders.” This blog post provides an overview of recent trends in borders and border control. The special issue “Borders as Places of Control. Fixing, Shifting, and Reinventing State Borders” of the journal Historical Social Research expands on these considerations.

This report from Beirut presents the topic of tangible and intangible borders-in-flux, which underlie the complexities of social space in modern Beirut Central District (BCD), on account of top-down planning after the civil war and the accumulation of the latest disruptive events, peaked by the port-blast on August 4th. Along with Lefebvre's triad (1974) —the people-less and conceptualized space of 'conceived' dimensions, the navigation of spatial practices or 'perceived space', and the signs and symbols of 'lived space'— it points out the changes in the urban fabric and linked contemporary borders. After introducing BCD, I will focus on Martyrs' Square due to its unique position in Beirut's former demarcation line, the main venue for political protests, and impacted area after the blast.

In a nutshell, the measures taken to stem the Covid-19 disease consist basically in the drawing of new and the thickening of existing borders. The strategy of bordering practices, as Norbert Cyrus & Peter Ulrich summarize these interventions against the spread of the Corona virus, was pursued first time in Wuhan, China: The right to leave and enter the city area had been restricted and movements across city borders became the subject of surveillance. Also, within the city area, the citizens’ freedom of movement was strictly restricted by imposing a curfew. Moreover, access to stores and working places was only allowed under certain restrictions.

In the face of the corona virus, numerous references to war and battle frame what is foremost positioned as a national challenge despite transnational cooperation. The Second World War as touchstone carries a particular relevance for Britain where heroic images of victory form a focal point of the current national discourse and conscience. Through reflecting on the current crisis, this post explores how clinging to war images connects to how the UK regards itself and, subsequently, how it perceives both Germany and the European Union.