Co-sponsored by the UBC Centre for Migration Studies Bo rders Group
Ma rie Sandberg\, Associate Professor\, Director of the Centre for Advanced Mi gration Studies (AMIS)\, University of Copenhagen\, sandberg@hum.ku.dk
[Abstract]
In this talk\, I will examine the border as a site of tension and a produc tive space for change. Based on recent ethnographic research on volunteers’ welcome practices in Denmark\, Germany\, and the Netherlands during the 20 15 refugee arrivals to Europe\, I argue that these practices were at once d e/stabilizing state borders: While providing for the newly arrived at train stations\, in storage places\, and on city squares\, the welcome practices were contesting the border as barrier. At the same time chaos was organise d into daily routines\, hence the volunteers were stepping in for state aut horities\, when they refrained from action. In this process\, the border em erges as an ambivalent sphere\, in which the “order of the border” (Hage 20 03) can be disturbed or troubled. With inspiration from Judith Butlers’s wo rk on “melancholic subjectivity” (1997\, 2004)\, I will further discuss how the refugee relief practices released a paradoxical longing for an ungriev able loss of the sociality presupposed by crisis\, after the spectacle of ‘ the European refugee crisis’ had moved elsewhere. In conclusion\, it is sug gested that these border tensions and the melancholia of volunteering expos es Europe as a troubled topos for civic participation.
[Bio]< /strong>
Marie Sandberg is Associate Professor in European Ethnology and Director of the Centre for Advanced Migration Studies (AMIS) at the Uni versity of Copenhagen. This fall she is a visiting researcher at the UBC Mi gration Center. She has published several peer-reviewed articles in high-ra nked journals such as Journal of European Studies\, Nordic Journal of M igration Research and Identities. Upcoming is an edited volum e on Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Research (with Palgrave Macmillan). Marie Sandberg’s ethnographic res earch expertise focuses on European borders\, migration practices and every day life Europeanisation. She studies how borders in/of everyday life are c ontinuously negotiated\, overcome\, and rebuilt in interactions such as vol unteer work in support of refugees coming to Europe during the 2015 “refuge e crisis.”
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