11/11: Seminar Series on Forced Migration: “Migration, borders and technologies: an introduction to techno-borderscapes”

You are invited to the Seminar Series on Forced Migration hosted by the University of Vienna Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, as part of the Europe-Asia Research Platform on Forced Migration launched by the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) and the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group (MCRG).
 
The inaugural lecture, Migration, borders and technologies: an introduction to techno-borderscapes” will be given by Giorgia Doná (University of East London Centre for Migration, Refugees and Belonging) and held online on November 11, 2020 starting at 5pm CET. Everyone is welcome and registration can be found here.
 
The Seminar Series brings speakers from different disciplines to discuss topics ranging from changing regimes and forms of governance of migrants/refugees; the solidarity networks and demands for social justice as entangled with increasing inequalities, austerity politics, and racism; the institutional components regulating and managing different forms of displacement; incorporation and exclusion of refugees and migrants from labor markets and protection regimes along the lines of gender, race, religion, and work.
 
Below, you will find the abstract for Prof. Giorgia Dona’s presentation and attached is the flyer. We kindly ask that you forward this event and flyer to your colleagues, networks, institutions, and those who are interested in these topics.
 
Abstract:
Giorgia Dona (UEL)
Migration, borders and technologies – an introduction to techno-borderscapes
In this presentation, I discuss the relationship among migration, borders and technologies by examining the role of mobile digital devices in the everyday lives of migrants in transit and their encounters with state agents, humanitarian actors and activists at the border. The concept techno-borderscapes is introduced to rethink transit zones as sites of embodied and virtual interactions that highlight the connections among digital securitisation, humanitarianism and activism. Confronted with increased border securitisation, migrants use mobile technologies to bypass borders, create new forms of migrant-to-migrant protection and assistance, and articulate their political voice. Border spaces are not just ‘in-between’ zones along a unidirectional migratory trajectory but rather transformative and transforming techno-borderscapes.