New issue of “UniGR-CBS Borders in Perspective” discusses the impact of (new) social, economic, health, mobility and national borders during the lockdown in March and May 2020.
From mid-March 2020 border controls were reintroduced, borders closed, curfews imposed and freedom of movement and interpersonal contacts restricted in the Schengen area. Through these measures implemented within a very short time in order to contain the highly infectious COVID-19 virus, borders became relevant (again) both in political action and in people’s everyday lives. This is particularly noticeable in border regions, where people’s lifeworlds span across borders. Borders and boundaries can also be experienced as mechanisms of social orderings and thus as differentiation processes.
The multiplicity and ubiquity with which borders suddenly gained importance in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, gave the impetus for the new issue of the series “UniGR-CBS Borders in Perspective”. Its focus is less on elaborated conceptual-theoretical considerations or empirical analyses that would have been premature, but rather on critical observations, reflections and scientific commentaries on current border practices and discourses. The contributions written in April and May 2020, and thus during the border closures, examine border practices at several European internal borders and the US-Mexican border, as well as the effects of the border closures in Jamaica or in refugee camps in Greece and Kenya. Thematically, the spectrum ranges from questions of border management, citizens’ protests, cross-border cooperation, employment, health, food and language to social inequality, migration, social cohesion, exclusion and globalization.
The thematic issue opens up multiple perspectives on and from the lockdown and gives an impression of border spaces and their dynamics in times of the global COVID-19 pandemic. As specific contemporary documents, the multilingual contributions offer a collection of subjects and issues, which can form a basis for the research program “Borders and COVID-19” which is unavoidable and expected in Border Studies. In this respect, the new issue of the series “UniGR-CBS Borders in Perspective” anticipates and contributes to a future field of research.
Bibliographic information and download
Christian Wille and Rebekka Kanesu (Eds.) (2020): Bordering in Pandemic Times. Insights into the COVID-19 Lockdown. Borders in Perspective 4, UniGR-Center for Border Studies, download http://cbs.uni-gr.eu/en/resources/publications/thematic-issues