BIG_Review 5.2
The new issue of Borders in Globalization Review is published! You’ll find cutting-edge research in border studies, extensive policy analyses, border artwork, film reviews, and book reviews. We hope you enjoy it!
Leading the issue are two innovative research articles. First, Berfin Nur Osso integrates critical analysis of European Union migration policy with artistic expressions of refugees and other migrants on the move, featuring their narratives and their paintings. Then, for our French readers, Abdoulaye Ngom presents a case study of a Senegalese family arranging for one of their sons to undertake a precarious journey to Europe, chronicling the complexity of the dilemmas and trajectories they face.
Our readership has expanded to include policy makers in various border management organizations, customs and immigration, and border regions world-wide. So in this issue’s policy section, you’ll find policy papers from South Africa, Italy, Zimbabwe, Moldova, and Australia that reflect this newly expanded scope. We are grateful for the important contributions of Jean Luc Erero, Paola Malaspina, Rwatida Mafurutu, Mihail Secu, and Jamie Ferrill and Allanah O’Hanlon. If you are reading BIG_Review and work in a border organization, your policy research is of interest to us. Do contact us—this indeed is a call for papers! This opportunity has been made possible thanks to the support of the World Customs Organization and Korea Customs.
The new issue is also rich with artwork engaging with the contradictions of borders. In the Chief Editor’s Choice Portfolio, featured on the cover, artist Laurent Reynès shares an innovative sculpture of border lines, conceptualizing the connections and hardships they engender. The work is the product of civil society collaboration with students from the University of Strasbourg, at the Center of Excellence’s 2023 Castle-talks on Narratives on Borders in Europe. In our poetry section, readers will find six poems grappling with borders, four poems by European poet Loris Ferri and two by Canadian Chad Norman. We then present a bold project of activism and artwork, the Navire Avenir, or, the Vessel of the Future, a campaign to conceptualize and actualize an appropriate life-saving response to the crisis of migrants lost at sea, brought to you by the Collectif du Navire Avenir.
Once again, our issue closes with two film and two book reviews. Sinem Arslan and Murat Çemrek recap recent cinema that dramatizes life struggles against closed borders in Turkey and Palestine respectively. Finally, Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly and Victor Konrad review recent academic publications in border studies.
Print editions are now available for purchase, and electronic copies are available for free online in Creative Commons open-access licensing. We hope you not only enjoy BIG_Review but share it as well!
#24 and #25 BIG Podcast – “Māori People, Tribal Borders and Customs in New Zealand”
featuring Thomas Tawhiri, Indigenous Māori Customs Manager and Researcher, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
The Māori are Indigenous Polynesian peoples with distant roots in the Lapita civilization. They are the first inhabitants of what is called New Zealand and arrived there more than one thousand years ago. The Māori people are a minority, forming about 18% of the New Zealand population. In this podcast, Thomas Tawhiri talks about the anthropological, political and legal history of New Zealand, the context of the declaration of independence (in Māori: He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni), the treaty of Waitangi, the societal organization of the people Māori (Iwi, Whanau, Hapu), and relations with colonial institutions. This episode is an extensive discussion about Māori culture, social boundaries between different Māori tribes and the importance of genealogy, the involvement of Māori culture within the governance of customs borders, and the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples on border research.
Listen to #24 (Part One): Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
Listen to #25 (Part Two): Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.
Thomas Tawhiri is an Indigenous Māori Custom Manager for Te Mana Ārai o Aotearoa (New Zealand Customs Service) and a researcher in Indigenous Studies. He holds a Master’s degree in Indigenous Studies from Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi along with a postgraduate diploma in Māori Studies from Massey University.
