Talk by Prof. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly on EU – BREXIT – what new borders mean for UK and EU
Thanks to the British Exit (Brexit) the European Union member states are faced with a new and important development in the history of the construction of the European Union. This talk discussed the origins and developments of the BREXIT in the UK and the European Union and its most recent developments; in particular, focusing on border issues in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom – what new borders mean for the UK and its relationship with the EU. Speakers: Britta Petersen, Senior Fellow ORF Prof. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, University of Victoria (Canada) Alex Pykett, British High Commission, New Delhi
Beyond Boundaries and Borders: South Asian Quest for Peace, Development and Regional Connectivity
Mumbai, India | March 1-2, 2019
South Asia is one of the fastest growing regions that exhibit a potential to emerge as a leading economic centre of the world. Nevertheless, South Asia is riddled with inter and intraregional conflicts embedded in ethnicity, religion, border disputes, and resource politics. These conflicts act as an impediment to peace, development and regional cooperation. In the post-1990’s economic restructuring (liberalisation and privatisation) paved the way for economic growth in the region. Not only India but other South Asian countries Like Nepal and Bangladesh recently earned a reputation of moving swiftly on the path of economic growth. It is a region, nascent in development and growth trajectory and all these are in favour of South Asia. It is expected that in the next couple of years both Nepal and Bangladesh will graduate from the category of the Least Developing Country (LDC) to Developing Country. At the same time, India with its newly acquired economic strength now transited from aid recipient to a donor country. While these are positive indications for a post-colonial region but some issues require serious academic deliberations. The foremost is the question of lack of peace, stability, development and regional integration that is also related to dismal connectivity and lack of cross-border mobility management/governance in South Asia. This is related to the fact that South Asian economies remained open to globalisation, but the same enthusiasm is missing for regional cooperation. Therefore the benefits associated with regional integration are still to be reaped. In short, South Asia is a region of hope and despair and the realisation of potentialities and overcoming the challenges largely depends on the prospect of peace, stability and regional cooperation/ integration.
The conference was organized by the Department of Civics and Politics (University of Mumbai, Mumbai), the Department of International Relations (South Asia University, New Delhi), the Center of Statelessness and Refugee Studies (School of Law, Rights and Constitutional Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai), and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (New Delhi).
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Workshop: Borders and Regionalism in South Asia
New Delhi, India | August 25, 2018
South Asia is regarded as one of the least integrated regions of the world. This is despite the fact that the region shares a common history, culture and developmental challenges. Indeed, some hard borders and boundaries act as hurdles for regional integration in South Asia. Contrary to this dominant representation of the region, other realities are quite often ignored. One such important aspect is the socio-cultural and historical ties that exist among the people of the region. Thus, while acknowledging the official borders, we can also see that there are prospects for progress. The commonality between the people opens the possibilities for soft regionalism and in a way, could lead to regional integration in South Asia. This one day workshop invited papers from young scholars to discuss the possibilities of regional integration in South Asia by bridging the existing borders and boundaries. Young faculty members and doctoral students submitted abstracts on themes related to borders and regionalism in South Asia.
Some of the suggested topics were Culture and Borders in South Asia, Border Regions in South Asia, Economic Integration and Borders, South Asian Connectivity, The Mental Borders and Boundaries in South Asia, and Comparative Borders: Examples from Other Regions.
#16 BIG Podcast – “Popular Protest, the Middle East and Borders”
featuring Michael J. Carpenter – Political Scientist at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada, and Managing Editor of BIG Review
The Middle East is the name of a complex geographical region comprising different countries and cultures between Europe, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Asia. It is also a space where many conflicts have existed and continue to exist today, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These disputes linked to a complex historical, religious and political situation should not obscure the presence of populations who struggle at their level and with their means against the domination that oppresses them. One thinks of the situation in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip and the difficult conditions of the inhabitants. We will discuss this territorial, border, human complexity with political scientist Michael J. Carpenter. He has written a book titled “Palestinian Popular Struggle: Unarmed and Participatory” (Routledge 2019).
Michael J. Carpenter is a Post-Doctoral Fellow working on a project titled, “Beyond ‘Irregular Migration’: Civil Disobedience without Borders”. In addition to his fellowship, Michael also serves as a founding member and current Managing Editor of the Borders in Globalization Review. He has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Victoria (2017) and a Master of Arts in Social and Political Thought from the University of Regina (2009). His research interests include borders, Middle East politics, global politics, civil resistance, non-state governance, and the history of social and political thought. He recently completed two publications based on his doctoral research, a monograph titled Palestinian Popular Struggle: Unarmed and Participatory, and a chapter called “Peace Process without the People: Sidelining Popular Struggle in Palestine” for an edited volume called the History of World Peace Since 1750 (both Routledge, forthcoming).
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and the Podcast App!
Borders and Migration: The Canadian Experience in Comparative Perspective
Michael J. Carpenter, Melissa Kelly, Oliver Schmidtke | University of Ottawa Press | 2023
Since 2015, the cross-border movement of migrants and refugees has reached unprecedented levels. War, persecution, destitution, and desertification impelled millions to flee their homes in central Asia, the Levant, and North Africa. The responses in the Global North varied country by country, with some opening their borders to historically large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, while others adopted increasingly strict border policies.
The dramatic increase in global migration has triggered controversial political and scholarly debates. The governance of cross-border mobility constitutes one of the key policy conundrums of the 21st century, raising fundamental questions about human rights, state responsibility, and security. The research literatures on borders and migration have rapidly expanded to meet the increased urgency of record numbers of displaced people. Yet, border studies have conventionally paid little attention to flows of people, and migration studies have simultaneously underappreciated the changing nature of borders.
Borders and Migration: The Canadian Experience in Comparative Perspective provides new insights into how migration is affected by border governance and vice versa. Starting from the Canadian experience, and with an emphasis on refugees and irregular migrants, this multidisciplinary book explores how various levels of governance have facilitated and restricted flows of people across international borders. The book sheds light on the changing governance of migration and borders. Comparisons between Canada and other parts of the world bring into relief contemporary trends and challenges.
Editors:
Michael J. Carpenter is a Post-Doctoral Fellow working on a project titled, “Beyond ‘Irregular Migration’: Civil Disobedience without Borders”. In addition to his fellowship, Michael also serves as a founding member and current Managing Editor of the Borders in Globalization Review.
Melissa Kelly is a Research Fellow with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University. She holds a PhD in Social and Economic Geography from Uppsala University.
Oliver Schmidtke is a Professor and UVic European Studies Scholar in the Departments of History and Political Science. Since 2006 he holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics. From 2005 to 2008 he was the Director of the European Studies Program at UVic and from 2004 to 2006 he served as the President of the European Community Studies Association Canada. Since 2012 he has been the Director of the Centre for Global Studies and during the academic year 2016-17 he serves as the Acting Vice President Research.
Nihon no Kyokai: Kokka to hitobito no sokoku (Japan’s Borders: For State or People)
Hyunjoo Naomi Chi, Edward Boyle | Hokkaido University Press | 2022
Featuring an Introduction co-written with Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (BIG Project Director), this volume is the outcome of a BIG Workshop held at Hokkaido University in April 2018, bringing Japanese and foreign researchers together to reflect upon the history and specificities of Japan’s contemporary border regime. Published on December 25th, 2022.
Editors:
Edward Boyle is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law and the Center for Asia-Pacific Future Studies. He holds a BA from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and an MA from the Faculty of Law at Hokkaido University, where he is also in the process of completing his doctorate. Currently, he is charged with the task of establishing Japan’s first interdisciplinary Center for Border Studies at Kyushu University.
Hyunjoo Naomi Chi is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, Hokkaido University. She holds a BA from the University of British Columbia.
Academic Partner – South Asian University
Dhananjay Tripathi
Chairperson & Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations, South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi, India. His research interest includes Regional Integration Process (Europe & South Asia), Border Studies and International Political Economy.
His recent publications are (ed) Re-imagining Border Studies in South Asia (2020- Routledge Publication), Co-edited South Asia: Boundaries Borders and Beyond (2022- Routledge Publication), Afghanistan Post- 2014: Power Configurations and Evolving Trajectories (2016- Routledge Publication) and authored book Development Role of the European Union in South Asia (2011- Vij Publication ).
He has also contributed in edited volumes and published in peer-reviewed journals including – Journal of Borderlands Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, International Studies, Alternatives, Eurasia Border Review, Quarterly of International Sociology, USI Journal, etc. He is also the co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Borderlands Studies on ‘South Asia: Boundaries, Borders and Beyond’.
He is also the editorial board member of prestigious international journals – Journal of Borderlands Studies (Taylor and Francis), Alternatives: Global, Local, Political (Sage Publication), Estudios Fronterizos (REF) (open access) and BIG Review (University of Victoria).
He is also co-applicant in the successful 21st Century Borders Partnership grant awarded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Canada.
His brief write-ups are published in major national newspapers including – The Hindu, Tribune Daily Excelsior, Telangana Today, Prabhat Khabar and Dainik Bhaskar
Academic Partner – Laval University
Frédéric Lasserre
Frédéric Lasserre holds a Master of Commerce (ESC Lyon, 1990), an MBA (York U., Toronto, 1991), a DEA in Geopolitics (U. Paris VIII, 1992) and a Ph.D. in Geography (U. Saint-Étienne, France, 1996).
He worked as a consultant with the European Observatory of Geopolitics (OEG, Lyon, France) on the political and economic transformations of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then as a foreign language instructor in Japan, then as Advisor in International Affairs on Asian Desks at the Quebec Ministry of Trade and Industry; and then with Investissement Québec, the Crown corporation responsible for the promotion of foreign investment in Quebec.
He is Professor since 2001 in the Department of Geography at Laval University (Quebec City). He acted as Project Director with the international ArcticNet research network. He is also researcher with the Ecole Supérieure d’Études Internationales (ESEI) and chairs the Conseil québécois d’Études géopolitiques (Quebec Council for Geopolitical Studies, CQEG) at Laval University.
With his book L’éveil du dragon. Les défis du développement de la Chine au XXIe siècle (Presses de l’Université du Québec) [The awakening of the dragon. The challenges of development in China in the 21st century], he won the HEC Best Business Book Award 2006.
He conducted extensive research in the field of Arctic geopolitics, water management, transport geopolitics and maritime borders, enabling him to publish more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and 27 books.
Graduate Student Fellow (MACD)
Nadine Graham
BIG | Jean Monnet Human-to-Military Security Database Project – University of Victoria
Nadine Graham joined the BIG team in June 2022 as a Graduate Student Fellow. She is currently completing a Master of Arts in Community Development in the Public Administration Department at UVic and focuses on the analysis of Immigration and Settlement related policy, non-profit settlement services as well as migration and border studies. She previously completed a Master’s in Immigration Management (Now called Migration Studies) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. She has 5 years of experience working with newcomers in the settlement field, in both language and employment. Nadine has had two book reviews published about gender inequality in China and cyber crimes against women in India in the Asian Journal of Women’s Studies.
21st Century Borders: Emergent Challenges Within & Among States
Program Overview
The 21st Century Borders grant is a seven-year SSHRC Partnership Grant. The research program builds off the work of the previous Borders in Globalization SSHRC Partnership Grant (2013-2020) which sought to understand the changing nature of borders through six thematic areas in order to document how state-centred and territorially-fixated research limits our understanding of borders. 21st Century Borders builds off the work done in the first grant with the goal of exploring and advancing the required epistemological shift from a state- centric and territorial logic to nodal and mobile logics that focus on both the internal and external forces that challenge the territorial integrity of states. While the first grant revealed the limitations of state-centred and territorially bound understanding of borders, this grant seeks to understand how we, as academics and policymakers, can move beyond that model.
We do this by focusing on three interrelated themes:
- Pillar 1: Looking inside of states at how Indigenous awareness and resurgences, along with increasingly prevalent politics of nationhood and nationalism, affect, fragment, and re-draft intergovernmental relations.
- Pillar 2: Examining the relationship between bordering processes and states’ territoriality, with particular attention paid to examining trade flows and human mobility – both within a states’ international boundaries and across international and transnational legal and regulatory regimes.
- Comparing how the politics in both the above-mentioned cases affect the geopolitics of borders across global regimes.
Program Structure
The grant itself is comprised of two parallel research pillars. Pillar one, led by Jeff Corntassel, and pillar two, led by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. While these two pillars work parallel to each other within the grant, the conceptual knowledge base and program understandings will flow between the two pillars and through into country specific case-studies. The two vertical pillars are cross-sectioned by two overarching themes: ecology and security. These themes will address issues of both ecology and security from within the contexts of the two primary pillars. Additionally, partners in the grant may choose to use their expertise to focus on country-specific case studies.
Pillar 1
Nationhood & Nationalism
Pillar one explores how claims of nationhood and nationalism exist in the Indigenous and regionalist experiences in borderlands. There is a growing body of literature that examines Indigenous nationhood claims and another, separate, body literature that looks at regionalist and nationalist claims in Europe. The goal of this pillar is to bridge the gap between these two literatures and explore how claims of nationhood and nationalist claims are similar, how they are different, and how they factor into claims of Indigenous self-determination. Through the work done here, this project examines ways that Indigenous nations, communities, and peoples challenge the territoriality of states and other patriarchal institutions in order to generate new understandings of how Indigenous relationships develop and persist beyond boundaries. By interrogating terms such as nationhood, international, self-determination, and borders, this project seeks to advance a deeper understanding of how these terms and relationships are viewed from diverse Indigenous perspectives.
Pillar 2
Territory & Connectivity
While pillar one deals with issues of territory, pillar two deals with issues of human mobility and trade flows by identifying and examining the instruments and infrastructures of connectivity. This includes structures, regulations, and functions of borders. Research occurring in this pillar may focus on issues such as pre-border clearance mechanisms, the externalization of borders, state-to-state security agreements, integrated border management regimes, strategies for preserving life in cross-border regions during crises. (List is not exhaustive and new projects will be reviewed by the academic and international advisory boards annually).
Partnership Composition
21st Century Borders is funded by a seven-year Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Grant. In addition to funding from SSHRC, our academic partners contribute matching funding and our non-academic partners provide cash and in-kind support for research and knowledge mobilization activities. This project is directed by Dr. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly at the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) and co-lead by Dr. Jeffrey Corntassel (University of Victoria). The academic partnership consists of eight Canadian university partners: Carleton University, École Nationale d’Administration Publique, Royal Military College of Canada, Trent University, Université du Québec à Montréal, Laval, Flemming College, and the University of Victoria; and six international university partners: Radboud University (The Netherlands), Université de Grenoble (France), University of Southern Denmark, South Asia University (India); Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), and Western Washington University.
Our policy partners include: the Canada Border Services Agency, the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (USA/Canada), the Association of European Border Regions (Europe), the World Customs Organization (Brussels), Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network – TIEN (Europe), Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière – M.O.T (France).
Research Affiliates
The 21st Century Borders research partnerships includes a number of scholars from around the world working with us on a variety of different projects. This list is updated regularly as we add new projects and expand the partnership.
Aileen Espiritu (UiT The Arctic University of Norway); Alan Bersin (Harvard University); Alex Buhk (Victoria University of Wellington); Amael Cattaruzza (Institut Français de Géopolitique); Budd Hall (University of Victoria); Can Mutlu (Acadia University); Daniel Meier (PACTE); Eve Tuck (University of Toronto); Evert Lindquist (University of Victoria); Fabienne Leloup (UCLouvain); Francisco Lara-Valencia (Arizona State University); Frédérique Berrod (Université de Strasbourg); Glen Coulthard (University of British Columbia); Guadalupe Correo Cabrera (George Mason University); Heidi Stark (University of Victoria); Irasema Coronado (Arizona State University); Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez (University of Alberta); Jamie Ferrill (Charles Stuart University); Katy Hayward (Queen’s University Belfast); Michelle Daigle (University of British Columbia); Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman (Institute of Chinese Studies – Delhi); Naomi Chi (Hakkaido University); Said Saddiki (Université Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah); Simon Dalby (Wilfrid Laurier University); Tamara Krawchenko (University of Victoria); Whitney Lackenbauer (University of Waterloo).
Funding Partners
