Sealing Borders? Rethinking Border Studies in Hard Times

This working paper is based on the keynote lecture held at the International Conference “B/ORDERS IN MOTION. Current Challenges and Future Perspectives” on November 15, 2018. The talk starts with a couple of snapshots from developments and conflicts in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2018 in order to conjure up the high stakes of border studies today. The attempt to seal the maritime border performed in particular by the Italian government is then discussed within a global framework and against the back- ground of recent developments in (critical) border studies. The point is made that in order to understand even the most exclusionary border policies and regimes, there is a need to take into consideration a multiplicity of heterogeneous bordering devices which prompt and shape wider transformations of political, social, and economic orders. The talk closes with an outline from this point of view of some of the main challenges for border studies in Europe and beyond emerging from the current conjuncture.