April 6–8, 2010, University of South Australia
Session Title: Border Panic? Re-thinking Emotions on the Edge
Provocation: Despite utopian pre dictions that the age of globalization would do away with the anachronism of borders, the post-9/11 security environment has intensified border politics as new security technologies, procedures and regulations are used to police the edges of the nation-state: in air ports, coastal waters, walls and fences. As the falling of the Berlin wall fades from memory, new borders emerge supported by new surveillance technologies and practices. While research on ‘border panic’ and ‘border anxiety’ is voluminous, there has been relatively lit tle interrogation of the actual emotions and affects of borders and border-crossing. Is this fear, panic or anxiety? And how does these manifest at the border?
Yet this focus on bor der panic/border anxiety fails to take into account the com plex ity of emo tions we feel at the bor ders: from the bore dom of the air port lounge to the fear and trep i da tion of refugees flee ing across bor ders, from the sad ness of leav ing loved ones to the joy of start ing anew. Perhaps too, if we lis ten care fully at the edges of the state we may find here the shame of the trans gres sor meet ing the dis gust of those who feel transgressed. The border re-invents itself, re-aligns itself and embeds itself in our bod ies, in our most vis ceral beings, forc ing us to con front not just the bor ders of the nation-state but the borders of our com mu ni ties and bod ies. What work does emo tion do in the production of borders? What emotions do different borders evoke?
In a sim i lar vein, emo tions them selves trans gress the bor ders of our bodies as they spark res o nances in our surroundings, across other spaces and to other bod ies. How does emo tion travel across borders? Can e-motion subvert borders and boundaries? Why are some emotions attached to particular localities while others are presumed to naturally transcend political geographies? What are the emotions and affects of migration and travel?
Convenor: Gilbert Caluya, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The Centre for Postcolonial and Globalization Studies, Hawke Research Institute, University of South Australia.
The Third International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies will beheld at the University of South Australia on April 6–8, 2010 in Adelaide, Australia. See www.uibk.ac.at/leopoldine/gender-studies/fem_wissenstransfer/emotional_geographiesx.pdf
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