Borders, Racisms and Resistance conference staged

Borders, Racisms and Resistance conference staged

Abertay University will host a conference seeking to bring together activists and researchers from across disciplines to discuss the changing landscape of racisms and borders.

Topics for exploration at the event on September 7 and 8 will include the rise of ethno-nationalism and immigration controls, and post-Brexit racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.

Organised by Abertay criminology lecturer Dr Monish Bhatia, the conference will also discuss responses to the refugee 'crisis' and asylum politics.

The visibility of racism and its links to struggles around multiculturalism, citizenship and belonging will also be on the agenda, as will a look at how immigration now occupies prime position in debates on both the left and the right.

Dr Bhatia said: “New modes of resistance have emerged in response to contemporary state racisms: Black Lives Matter, anti-raids networks, and demonstrations against detention and deportation's have sought to challenge not only the violence of the state but, at times, the very notion of the border itself.

“This conference also aims to re-assert Scotland’s place in these global shifts, challenging assumptions of Scottish exceptionalism, and taking seriously Scotland’s role in historical and contemporary racisms.”

Indicative themes:

• Everyday borders / bordering practices
• Detention and deportation
• Securitisation, criminalisation and surveillance
• Islamophobia / anti-Muslim racism
• Nationalism
• Resisting state racisms