Journalists, activists, advocates, lawyers, researchers and critical thinkers unveil the persecution, control, and cultural violence around borders & migration.
BORDERS OF FEAR aims to shed light on wrongdoing in the context of migration by investigating the reasons and practice of rising borders and walls, leading to cultural and physical violence, persecution and human rights violations. The conference focuses on the discourse of borders both at a concrete level, and as a strategy of cultural violence on the part of right-wing propaganda. On the one hand, we analyse the closure of frontiers, creation of refugee camps, escalation of security; on the other hand, we investigate how border policing and the datafication of society are affecting the narrative around migrants and refugees in Europe and the west.
“Technical definitions, concepts and categories of migrants and migration are necessarily informed by geographic, legal, political, methodological, temporal and other factors.”
World Migration Report 2020
The terms “refugee”, “asylum-seeker” and “migrant” are used to describe people who are on the move, who have left their countries and have crossed borders, as defined by Amnesty International. Each category is treated differently by the law; however, many people who do not fit the legal definition of a refugee could be in danger if sent back home. For BORDERS OF FEAR we have decided to focus on the general terms of migration in relation to human right abuses and cultural violence, although we are conscious that legally there are specific differences.
The language used in the media to describe migrants, refugees and asylum seekers often blurs the line between those leaving their countries for economic betterment and those forced to leave to protect themselves and their families from war, conflicts and destruction of their countries of origin. Our perception of the situation in these diverse countries — be it North Africa, the Middle East or world wide — and the depiction of these people is heavily influenced by geopolitical strategies, financial plans, and the white Western perception of the diverse, unfamiliar and “the other”.
Brexit and other political developments have shown how the arrival of a relatively large number of migrants in areas that historically experienced low levels of immigration also makes it easier for populists to steer the debate and to claim immigration as the cause of social failure and declining standards of living, while more complex explanations of the often very different causes of the problems are drowned out by xenophobia.
Alongside, anti-immigration propaganda legitimises the construction of walls, the escalation of security, and forms of surveillance and controls at borders and frontiers. Cultural and physical borders become the context of discrimination, human rights abuses, violence and justification of pushbacks or detention centers, where people are locked away for years or are exploited by traffickers.
BORDERS OF FEAR brings together journalists, activists, media experts, lawyers, researchers and critical thinkers to unveil persecution, control, and cultural violence in relation to refugees and to people with a migration background. Furthermore, we want to hear directly the voice of the migrants and refugees themselves, to reflect collectively on forms of social justice in search for a deeper political awareness.