From 6 to 8 September 2023, the interdisciplinary Viadrina research Center B/ORDERS IN MOTION organises the international conference « Contesting 21st Century B/Orders », part of which is the TEIN Annual Conference.

The conference which will take place on-site at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), located on the German-Polish border and in collaboration with the international partner research networks « Borders in Globalization » (BIG) and the « Transfrontier Euro-Institut Network » (TEIN).

The conference aims to discuss how societal orders in the 21^st century are changing through new forms of border and boundary drawing, and to investigate how the borders of the contemporary world are shaped. The scholarly program of the conference is built along three thematic streams: (1) territorial, geopolitical and material borders, (2) research on symbolic, social and discursive boundaries, and (3) research on migration and borders.

During 16 panels, a range of border and order concepts will be put up for discussion: What processes of inclusion and exclusion do they condition? What grey zones and liminal spaces are created by them to what effects? Building on the aspects of marking (durability), permeability, and the formation of border zones (liminality), we focus on the interplay of multidimensional – social, symbolic, and material – border demarcations and their significance for societal orders. Thus, the conference will contribute to scholarly debates in which borders are described in their complexity and multiformity and conceptualized as assemblages, borderscapes, interfaces, or border textures.

Two keynote lectures held by Élisabeth Vallet (BIG, Université du Québec à Montréal) and Marie Sandberg (University of Copenhagen) and a final round table discussion are planned to enhance interdisciplinary dialogue across the streams, and bring together representatives of different trans-European and transatlantic research organizations and networks. The scientific program will be flanked by steering committee meetings of the TEIN Network.

Conference Programme « Contesting 21st Century B/Orders »

TEIN Annual Conference Programme

⇒ Registration