UCSB Latin American and Iberian Studies Program

Conferences

A border is what separates things, and the border’s very existence is inseparable both from the power that sustains it and from the possibility of its transgression. In recent years, the relationship between borders—political, geographical and symbolic—and State power has taken on a special significance in the public arena. Transgression, for its part, is an ambivalent term, as it may encompass very different ideas—from resistance against oppression to the erosion of institutions on behalf of authoritarianism or corporate profit. Analyzing borders and power must take this ambivalence into account.
 
In this conference graduate students from the US and the world will discuss borders as a broad and fluid concept, encompassing not only geographical or political boundaries, but also questions like gender, race, ethnicity, discursive practices, and more broadly, notions like limit, frontier, division and critique. There will be contributions from a variety of disciplines in the social sciences, the humanities and the arts.  

Keynotes

April 7, 3:00PM to 4:30PM (PST)
Conversation with historian Christine Hünefeldt: Crafting Borders?
With the participation of: Marlene Torres-Magaña and Emma Zamora Garcia.
Professor Emeritus, History, University of California San Diego
 
April 8, 1:30PM to 3:00PM (PST)
Border Thinking & Living la Vida Fronteriza (the Border Life)
Professor, Geography,  Pennsylvania State University
 
April 9, 2:00PM to 3:30PM (PST)
Assessing the Damage: Reflections on the Trump Administration’s Dismantling of the U.S. Asylum System
Staff Attorney, American Bar Association, Immigration Justice Project, San Diego