The Politics of Border Production between Sovereignty and Mobility

Borders are no longer simply lines on a map. Over the past two decades, the proliferation of restrictive policies, outsourcing of control, and digital surveillance infrastructures have fundamentally transformed what borders are, where they operate, and who produces them, with relevant implications for human mobility. At the same time, borders have become sites of intense political contestation: over sovereignty and international obligation, over security and humanitarian protection, over mobility and immobility, over the rights of those who cross them and those who cannot. This panel invites contributions that engage with the politics of border production in its multiple dimensions (spatial, institutional, discursive, and technological) and its implications from a comparative perspective. We welcome papers addressing the displacement of border functions to third countries and transit states; how borders are produced through language, narrative, and institutional representation; the role of political discourse in legitimising or contesting border practices; the tension between border control imperatives and international human rights and refugee law; borders as sites of geopolitical competition.
Contributions are welcome from political science, international relations, border studies, geography, sociology, and law. The panel explicitly encourages engagement across disciplinary boundaries and between empirical and theoretical approaches.