BIG team members and fellows were some of the many attending ABS’ Borders, Edges and Interfaces: Pluralities and Scales conference, hosted February 13th-18th, 2023 at the Eilat Campus of Ben-Gurion University at the tri-border towns of Eilat (Israel), Aqaba (Jordan) and Taba (Egypt).
The study of borders has experienced significant growth during the past thirty years . Focussing on the borderless world theories of the late 80’s and early 90’s, scholars from across the disciplinary boundaries have come together with new border narratives, ranging from the level of the state to the scale of local borders, from the physical borders to the perceived, and with a recent focus on the reconstruction of borders in a post 9/11 world, and the way in which borders are represented through a variety of images, ranging from film, literature, caricatures and cartography.
The conference was be held at the Elat Campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the south of Israel. The town of Elat is located at the meeting of three borders – Egypt (Taba), Jordan (Aqaba) and Israel (Elat) – and just a few kilometers north of the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Israel-Palestine is located at the interface of borders, continents and cultures, and sessions will be devoted to the sensitive Geopolitics of this region, at local and national scales. Dependent on the political conditions at the time, it is the intention of the conference organizers to arrange a tri-border field trip. Following the conference, there was a choice of two optional field trips to other critical border regions – Israel’s northern borders with Lebanon and Syria; and the borders and geopolitics of the West Bank and the Jerusalem region.
The conference organizers are hoping that by February 2023 it will be possible to hold a conference with physical participation, but will also be making contingency plans for a virtual conference if necessary. Even, as expected, a return to physical participation, there will be the possibility of some hybrid sessions, so that many scholars, and particularly students who will be unable to make the journey, will be able to participate
In addition to individual abstracts, the organizers welcome proposals for thematic sessions on any topic relating to border studies across the multi-disciplinary perspectives, across the geographic scales, and across global cultural and geographical locations.
Full list of keynote speakers.
Find more information on ABS’ site here.
