UNITA Borders
The second edition of UNITA Borders takes place on 15th-19th July 2024.
The UNITA Borders BIP focuses on the cultural, social and political importance of borders in the context of the important transformations that the world is currently witnessing.
Borders have multiple roles, as their spatial, political and administrative functions also have important cultural, linguistic and social implications. As areas of contact and exchange between different nations and cultures, borders can also be the foci of discriminatory practices of exclusion, control and containment, for example by blocking or slowing down immigration, or indeed causing conflict between nations.
The UNITA Borders BIP, entirely taught in English, has an interdisciplinary approach to borders. Its classes will discuss borders from multiple angles, including social and historical factors (e.g. immigration), the cultural, geographical and political importance of borders, the building of barriers or walls to prevent the free movement of people, and the elements of social cohesion as well as fracture generated in, and because of, border areas.
In line with the UNITA mission, a special focus of the UNITA Borders BIP is the analysis of the role of borders in the context of the European Union. A number of recent events, including the Brexit referendum in 2016, the ongoing pandemic and the current Russia-Ukraine war, has led to questioning the stability of the international order, all the while putting the EU’s open and borderless space of exchange between different nations and communities under stress.
Undergraduates and MA students from several areas in Social Sciences and Humanities, including Political Science, Sociology, Modern Languages, Geopolitics, International Relations, Geography, Human Geography, Area Studies, and History.
Applications from students from different scientific areas can be considered, but priority will be given to students in Social Sciences and/or Humanities.
- Class schedule:
- Friday 12 July, morning: online meetings, introduction to the course, general welcome
- Sunday 14 July, afternoon: Welcome reception, Olimpia Residence
- Monday 15th July, morning and afternoon: classes
- Tuesday 16th July, morning and afternoon: classes
- Wednesday 17th July, morning: classes
- Wednesday 17th July, afternoon: free
- Thursday 18th July, morning and afternoon: classes
- Friday 19th July, morning: classes
- Friday 19th July, afternoon: final exams
- Monday 22nd July: final online meeting; discussion and feedback
- Language requirements: all classes will be taught in English and B2 level of English at least is required
- Dates for physical activity: 15th-19th July 2024
- Dates for virtual component: 12th and 22nd July 2024
- Location: Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, Lungo Dora Siena 100, Turin - Italy
- No. of ects issued: Three
- Academic coordinator: Massimiliano Demata ([email protected])
Emma Bell is Professor of Contemporary British Politics at Savoie Mont-Blanc University in Chambéry, France. Her current research focuses on new forms of democracy and challenges to state authoritarianism.
Miguel-Ángel Benítez-Castro is a Senior Lecturer in English language and TEFL methodology at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Zaragoza. His scholarly endeavors over the past eight years have been aimed at scrutinizing the workings of persuasive discourse and evaluation in the press, in oral narratives of trauma and abuse, and in the speeches and online propaganda produced by populist leaders and jihadist terrorist groups.
Elisa Bignante is associate professor of Political and economic geography at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Torino. She has 20 years’ experience in researching and teaching in the field of development geography and in the use of participatory research methods and peer research approaches with local communities in the Global South. After achieving a BSc in Economics and PhD in Local Development and Territorial Planning, she focused on Development geography working extensively in international aid projects in Africa and Latin America. Her particular interests include participatory geographies, indigenous knowledges, social marginalities, health and wellbeing, international aid, natural resource management and the use of participatory visual methods to support local communities.
Anna Casaglia is Assistant Professor at the University of Trento, where she teaches Geographies of Security and Political and Economic Geography. Her interests and expertise span from the analysis of conflict in relation to space, the spatial aspects of power relations, borders and bordering as complex processes and important analytical lenses to understand contemporary social and political phenomena.
Astrid M. Fellner is Chair of North American Literary and Cultural Studies at Saarland University, Germany, where she currently also serves as Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Humanities.
She is also Head of the UniGR Center for Border Studies at Saarland University and the co-editor a trilingual Border Glossary, a handbook of key terms in Border Studies.
Dr Jussi P. Laine is a professor of multidisciplinary border studies at the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland, holding the title of Docent of Human Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland. By background Dr Laine is a human geographer, yet in his approach to borders he combines influences from international relations and geopolitics, political sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology. Within border studies he seeks to explore the multiscalar production of borders and bring a critical perspective to bear on the relationship between state, territory, citizenship, and identity construction.
After pursuing a formative path between the University of Pisa, University of Leicester, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari and San Diego State University, Andrea Masala is a co-tutelle PhD Candidate in contemporary art history and geography at the University of Genoa and Université Grenoble Alpes, where he is currently completing his interdisciplinary PhD Thesis on the Norwegian/Russian Border Art. His interests concerning the relationships between Border Art, space, and spectacularization practices conducted him as a visiting researcher at the UIT The Arctic University of Norway, and the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Since 2024, he is Research Fellow in anthropology at the University of Bergamo, in the frame of the “BorderArt(E)Scapes” PRIN project.
Daniel Meier is currently an associate lecturer at Sciences Po Grenoble and at the Global Studies Institute at Geneva University. He is a member of the Association of Borderland Studies and "regional editor" for the Journal of Borderlands Studies. His scientific interests focus on identity and spatial issues, with a special dedication to border conflicts and borderland issues in the Middle East.
Eva Nossem is the scientific coordinator of the UniGR-Center for Border Studies at Saarland University (Germany). Both in her teaching and research, she aims at bringing together approaches from gender/queer studies, cultural studies and linguistics, with a particular focus on critical discourse studies, multilingualism, lexicography, and sociolinguistic.
Ernesto C. Sferrazza Papa is Senior Assistant Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". He has served as researcher and adjunct professor in several institutions (University of Turin, FMSH in Paris, Universidad Católica de Chile, Vilnius University, Rijeka University, University of Salerno). He is author of numerous papers in international journals and has published three books: Modernità infinita. saggio sul rapporto tra spazio e potere (2019); Le pietre e il potere. Una critica filosofica dei muri (2020); Il dispotismo della libertà. Schmitt e Kelsen interpreti di Rousseau (2022). His research focuses mainly on the political philosophy of territorial borders, modern and contemporary political philosophy, history of political and legal philosophy, and critical theory.
Francesca Pisano is the Danish Refugee Council Italia Program Coordinator. Prior to this role, she worked with several Italian civil society organisations as Project Coordinator and Legal Aid Officer, managing support and protection activities for migrants and refugees arriving or transiting through border areas (Lampedusa and Ventimiglia)
Élisabeth Vallet is associate professor at RMCC-Saint Jean, director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, affiliate professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). Her current research focuses on borders and globalization, border walls and governance.