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(de)Bordering: Building New Thinking on Nation and Movement
Monday 28 June 2021 at 2:00 pm to 10:00 pm
The UK is determined to become a hostile environment. Ever more demands are being made of visa holders and asylum seekers, making life more insecure and expensive. Racism and nationalism are on the rise, shouting that people should be in the right place – and that right place is not in the UK. Bringing together academics and artists, our project delights and learns from plants, birds and insects that are not in the ‘right place’. Moths that migrate on the Channel Ferry, ladybirds guided by motorway lights, robins that pop back for the winter. There are all sorts of fraternising, co-existing, and pollinating being encouraged in this little corner of the world.
(de)Bordering explores ideas of native, the natural and place, and how they feature in thinking and the politics of environment and ecology, and the politics of migration and mobility. Language matters in these debates, and ideas of ‘invasive others’ polluting national spaces transfer too easily from animals and plants to people, particularly in the context of anxiety about environmentally related migration. It is important to act on environmental destruction, climate change and migration justice, and to act together. This demands thought, conversation and debate, and the University is an important space to facilitate this.
We are building a unique meeting place for (de)Bordering, and we need help. The basic structure has been built, but we want to turn it into a home. On 28th June, we invite students to join us to make a shelter and a firepit – a hospitable environment – and by the end of the day we’ll inaugurate it with stories, songs, poetry and food. All are welcome. We particularly welcome international students, refugees and migrants, and people who are coming on their own.
On 28th June, we invite students to help us to make a shelter and a firepit – a hospitable environment – and by the end of the day we’ll inaugurate it with stories, songs, poetry and food. All are welcome. We particularly welcome international students, refugees and migrants, and people who are coming on their own.
Here’s the programme. Come for any of it, or for the whole day. All welcome.
2-5pm – designing and building the shelter
5-6.30pm – making the firepit
6.30 – 7.30pm – food
7.30-10pm inaugurating the firepit – bring a story, poem or song. The more languages the better
Do sign up here if you want to learn more – we’ll also be holding an online chat with some of the (de)Bordering team on Monday 14th June.
