Modern Border Management: (Im)migration and Mobility
2023 Summer Institutes, July 10-26, 2023 | Stream 2

BIG Talk: Space, Institutional innovations, and Crossborder mobility (flows)
with Dr. Sergio Peña (Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico) | Zoom | May 17, 2023
In Person: CFGS C179 (Sedgewick) or Zoom. The meeting will take place from 10:00AM to 11:30AM PST.
Register in advance for this meeting here.
The objective of the presentation is to analyze institutional innovation related to crossborder mobility and flows. The presentation identifies different bodies of theories that have emerged in the border literatures and analyze how these theories help us understand mobility (flows) not only from the classical spatial perspective of flows of “things”, but also flows from a relational perspective. The bodies of border theory presented are: 1) the classical territoriality perspective, 2) borders in globalization, and 3) border “everywhere”. The main argument is that mobility is a policy field where institutional innovation is more likely to take place due to the convergence of interests of both sides of the border to facilitate the flows of goods and people. Also, mobility, particularly undocumented human mobility, is a very dynamic and fast changing therefore state institutions (e.g., customs and border patrol among others) must adapt their strategies. Institutional innovation is defined as the ability to “reduce distance” that would allow institutions to cooperate and collaborate to boost the development of the region. Moreover, the presentation will take a critical approach that innovation also raises ethical and moral dilemmas.
Dr. Sergio Peña holds a doctoral degree in urban and regional planning from Florida State University. He works for the Colegio de la Frontera Norte a research think tank specialized in border research and graduate education. His research agenda focused on studying crossborder planning, governance, and cooperation processes. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Borderlands Studies. He is conducting research on crossborder mobility comparing the US -Mexico and the US- Canada.

Enhancing Labour Mobility in Alberta: The role of Immigration, Migration, and Other Factors
Richard E. Mueller | BIG Research Reports | #12

Tuition-Free Fellowships: Call for Paper Proposals
Submission Deadline: March 31st, 2025
We are now accepting paper proposals for academic and policy research on cross-border management issues and challenges.
We welcome any proposal subject that is related to: cross-border management, border law, trade and customs borders, human mobility across borders, Indigenous internationalisms and border crossings, border security, ecological borders, border disputes, and artificial intelligence in border management.
Successful applicants will be receive a tuition-free fellowship for our Summer Institutes, where they will learn from leading academics and policy officials about contemporary borders and earn a certificate in the institute(s) of their choice.
Fellows will be supervised by professors/lecturers at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) and the papers produced may be published in our academic journal, BIG_Review.
Submission Guidelines
To respond to this Call for Paper Proposals, please submit your application at the button labelled “Complete Application Form” no later than Monday, March 31st at 11:45 PM (PST). Successful applicants will be notified by the end of April 2025.
Proposals should be a maximum of 500 words, including title and biography, and should discuss the motivation for, objective and possible outcomes of your research as well as explain the datasets and methodology to be used in your research. Proposals must be uploaded to the online application as a PDF document in accordance with the following requirements:
– File name: Last name, First name_2025 BIG Summer Inst Proposal
– Times New Roman 12 pt. font
– Double-spaced
– Written in English or French
For more information on the application and award process, see the “Detailed Call for Paper Proposals” and submission guidelines below.

Junior Resident Fellow | Research Assistant
Onome Akhigbe
Onome is a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) student from Nigeria, who came to Canada in 2022. She works as a research assistant with the Borders in Globalization (BIG) lab at the University of Victoria. In her role, she focuses on developing case studies on cross-border mobility and researching cross-border infrastructure across different continents. Through her work, Onome contributes to the understanding of global cross-border dynamics and collaborates with colleagues to explore various aspects of international movement and infrastructure.

#30 & 31 BIG Podcast – Democracy, Migration Studies, and Border Studies: Bridges and/or Gaps
featuring Oliver Schmidtke, UVic European Studies Scholar, Professor, and Director of the Centre for Global Studies
Classically, Migration Studies explore all mobility regimes of human groups. There is a spectrum of public policies ranging from the migration of high-skilled workers to refugees. For the Migration Studies, national borders provide a form of social closure. Traditionally, Borders refer to issues that are fundamental to political community (state sovereignty, territorial delimitation, national security, political identity). And for this reason, borders are also instruments for regulating flows, policy tool for inclusion/exclusion. Several authors have pointed out a form of gap between Border Studies and Migration Studies. That there was a lack of cross-fertilization between these two research traditions. And some populist and nationalist discourses can exploit the ambivalence of the borders and the confusion around it. In this episode, Oliver Schmidtke joins BIG_Lab to discuss all the relations between democracy, migration, and borders and get answers to some important questions.
Listen to Part One: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Listen to Part Two: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Oliver Schmidtke is a Professor in the Departments of Political Science and History at the University of Victoria where he also holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European History and Politics. He received his PhD from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He taught at the Humboldt University Berlin before joining UVic in 2000 and has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Bonn University, the European University Institute, and Hamburg University.

BIG Talk — From Border Perplexity to Border Renaissance: A Cultural Rebirth of Borders
with Dr. Astrid Fellner (Head of the UniGR-Center for Border Studies, Saarland University) | Victoria, BC & Zoom | February 27, 2024
In Person: CFGS C168 (Sedgewick Building, University of Victoria) or Zoom. The meeting will take place from 12:00pm to 1:30pm PST. Register in advance for this meeting here. Registration is free but required.
Borders are once again at the center of attention. With the many bloody conflicts in the world, violence at borders and border traumas connected with the crossings of borders have increased in recent times. Particularly over the last decade, the increasing focus of Western policies on controlling migration and discipling mobility has led to a high-technologization of the border regime and a multiplication of border infrastructures, leading to a new age of borderization—a downright border renaissance—that has been exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, during which the proliferation of new and renewed borders has reached unequaled heights. This talk will focus on the current resurgence in the importance and vitality of borders, showing that the current border renaissance has also led to a rebirth in border literature, border arts, and border theories, which offer fresh ways of conceiving borders.
Astrid M. Fellner is Chair of North American Literary and Cultural Studies at Saarland University, Germany, where she is Head of the “University of the Greater Region Center for Border Studies.” She is co-editor of a trilingual Border Glossary and a handbook of key terms in Border Studies, and she has published on the US/Canada as well as US/Mexican border. She has been involved in research and teaching projects in Border Studies with Ukrainian universities and has worked on the BMBF-project “Linking Borderlands,” for which she studies border films and industrial culture of the Greater Region in comparison with the German/Polish border.

Borders in Globalization
Summer Institutes
UVic’s Borders in Globalization (BIG) research program currently hosts eight week-long intensive Summer Institutes exploring borders in the 21st century. Participants develop comprehensive understandings of contemporary borders by learning from top academics in the field as well as policy experts from a variety of international, governmental, non-governmental, and local organizations. Each course is fully hybrid to ensure a personalized and engaging experience for all participants.
2024 Summer Institutes
Call for Fellows
Borders in Globalization is pleased to publish a Call for Fellows for our 2024 Summer Institutes. Applicants should submit policy papers on academic and policy research related to cross-border management issues and challenges.
The selected applicants will receive a fellowship for a Summer Institute related to their paper proposal; this will be determined by the review board. Fellows will be supervised by professors/lecturers at the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) and the papers produced may be published in BIG_Review, our academic journal. Learn more about the Call for Papers here.
Registration Options
Academic Course Option
Students at the University of Victoria, as well as visiting students, can take our border institutes as a Directed Reading through the School of Public Administration. If taken for credit, the course will run for the duration of the summer term in addition to the week-long course residency. Students interested in this option should contact [email protected] for more information.
Micro-Credit Streams
We are very excited to have partnered with the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Continuing Studies to offer all our institutes as micro-credits. Micro-credentials provide ongoing professional development and offer a fast and flexible way to upskill or reskill and remain competitive in your industry.
Stream 1
Modern Border Management: Trade and Customs
Deepen your knowledge about the regulatory environment of trading networks, practical trade applications and concerns related to artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the challenges and opportunities in managing cross-border regions.
Stream 2
Modern Border Management: (Im)migration and mobility
Examine the politics and policies of cross border regions and transboundary people and contemporary challenges to the complex global migration system.
Stream 3
Modern Border Management: Law of Borders and Cross-Border Laws
Explore the juridical complexity of borders and discover the significance of territorial delimitations, border singularities, international disputes, border controls, and the effects of globalization on contemporary borders.
Student Testimonials
Trade & Customs Borders Institute
“Having the opportunity to listen to new perspectives from international speakers, working through diverse concepts in the following practicums, and being able to ask questions at any point was a great structure and enabled me to broaden my knowledge on modern trade, customs, and cross-border management practices. Making new, global connections with other students was a bonus! I’d highly recommend attending the Institute.“ -Policy Professional from the Canada Border Services Agency (2022 Participant)
Cross-Border Management Institute
“Attending [the institute] is a dream come true as I was exposed to lots of useful insights and thoughts on emerging trends in cross-border control and management amidst latest threats and challenges associated with same. I sincerely express my deep appreciation to the University of Victoria [UVIC] – British Columbia and Borders in Globalization [BIG] for giving me such opportunity to attend this awesome event and equally thank the World Customs Organization [WCO] for creating such an enabling environment to enhance my capacity building in addressing and tackling cross-border challenges and threats.” – Policy Professional from the World Customs Organization (2022 Participant)
General Testimonials
“I think the BIG Summer Institute management is higher than just “professional,” because they pay attention to the curiosity of the participant, not only run the curriculum” – Policy Professional (2022 Participant)
“The experience was stimulating because of the research intensive approach and the varied perspectives from different presenters, unlike other trainings that have mostly been from the perspective of one presenter delivering second-hand information.” – Policy Professional Participant (2022 Participant)
Contesting 21st Century B/Orders
European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany | September 6–8, 2023
A little more than two decades into the 21st century, state borders have once more moved to the center of today’s geopolitical tensions. Russia’s war against Ukraine has brought a renewed focus on border contestations, not only in Central Europe. However, at stake in the contestation of borders is not only a territorial political order or the sovereignty of particular states. The relationship of borders to orders is also crucial in determining regulations and norms that govern different forms of inclusion, recognition and exclusion of social groups within states.
Thus, societal orders require drawing borders, whether they mark nation-state or trans-state associations or mark the contested boundaries of symbolic classifications. With migration and mobility, borders not only function as filters that selectively open or close but also as “hierarchizing machines” that produce different status categories. Territorial and material borders, as well as social, symbolic and discursive boundaries and their instantiation, play an essential role in practices of power, practices through which processes of inclusion and exclusion are legitimised and hierarchically structured. Societal orders, for example, set boundaries of belonging to national communities and European or Western civilization. Both within the territorial borders of states and transnationally, they define racially and ethnically defined boundaries and mobilise hegemonic norms of gender and sexuality. At the same time, borders and societal orders, whether economic, legal, social, or cultural, are anything but stable. It is thus crucial to investigate how borders and orders are reproduced, contested, and transformed.
At the international conference “Contesting 21st Century B/Orders“, the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION, in cooperation with the international research networks “Borders in Globalization”– 21st Century borders (BIG) and “Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network” (TEIN), aims to discuss how societal orders in the 21st century are changing through new forms of the border and boundary drawing and to investigate how the borders of the contemporary world are shaped.
The Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION invites you to Frankfurt (Oder) on the German-Polish border to engage in vivid discussions on this highly relevant and debated subject. From September 06-08, 2023, a range of border and order concepts will be put up for discussion: What processes of inclusion and exclusion do they condition? What grey zones and liminal spaces are created by them to what effects? Building on the aspects of marking (durability), permeability, and the formation of border zones (liminality) highlighted by the Viadrina Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION in its founding phase, we focus on the interplay of multidimensional – social, symbolic, and material – border demarcations and their significance for societal orders. Thus, we contribute to scholarly debates in which borders are described in their complexity and multiformity and conceptualized as assemblages, borderscapes, interfaces, or border textures.
A full program can be viewed on the Borders in Motion website or in PDF.
