How does border work change the societies building these borders? State borders and their ‚protection‘ have resurfaced as highly controversial public issues in the past two decades, particularly in the context of migration governance. The return to borders as alleged safeguards of liberal sovereignty comes with their material fortification, the employment of biometric databases, militarized border police, the forced immobilization of people on the move in camps, and the criminalization of humanitarian activities.

Building on ample research from border studies and other scholarship, our Research Group „Internalizing Borders: The Social and Normative Consequences of the European Border Regime“ focused on the societal effects of European bordering processes, asking how border fortification and border violence impact the societies that enact them. In Europe and elsewhere we can observe a nexus between border policies, the border spectacle, and the rise of right-wing populist, authoritarian, and nativist discourses and politics.

At the closing conference of our research group, we will discuss how the brutalization of European border work is related to societal shifts, the erosion of the rule of law, illiberal transformation of democracies, and the rise of authoritarianism. The conference brings together the fellows of the research group with other experts on borders, racism, and populism such as Tendayi Achiume, Miriam Ticktin, William Walters, and Maximilian Steinbeis.