A world of walls: the brutish power of man-made barriers
The southern border wall, as it is euphemistically known, between the United States…
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Department of Politics and Government – the Chair of Geopolitics
Department of Geography and Environmental Development
To be held at the Eilat Campus of Ben-Gurion University
at the tri-border towns of Eilat (Israel), Aqaba (Jordan) and Taba (Egypt)
The study of borders has experienced significant growth during the past thirty years . Focussing on the borderless world theories of the late 80's and early 90's, scholars from across the disciplinary boundaries have come together with new border narratives, ranging from the level of the state to the scale of local borders, from the physical borders to the perceived, and with a recent focus on the reconstruction of borders in a post 9/11 world, and the way in which borders are represented through a variety of images, ranging from film, literature, caricatures and cartography.
The conference will be held at the Elat Campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the south of Israel. The town of Elat is located at the meeting of three borders – Egypt (Taba), Jordan (Aqaba) and Israel (Elat) – and just a few kilometers north of the border between Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Israel-Palestine is located at the interface of borders, continents and cultures, and sessions will be devoted to the sensitive Geopolitics of this region, at local and national scales. Dependent on the political conditions at the time, it is the intention of the conference organizers to arrange a tri-border field trip. Following the conference, there will be a choice of two optional field trips to other critical border regions – Israel’s northern borders with Lebanon and Syria; and the borders and geopolitics of the West Bank and the Jerusalem region.
The conference organizers are hoping that by February 2023 it will be possible to hold a conference with physical participation, but will also be making contingency plans for a virtual conference if necessary. Even, as expected, a return to physical participation, there will be the possibility of some hybrid sessions, so that many scholars, and particularly students who will be unable to make the journey, will be able to participate
In addition to individual abstracts, the organizers welcome proposals for thematic sessions on any topic relating to border studies across the multi-disciplinary perspectives, across the geographic scales, and across global cultural and geographical locations.
Dear Colleagues,
It is my great pleasure and honour to announce the hosting of an in-person Association
for Borderlands Studies (ABS) Third World Conference to be held in Eilat, Israel, on
February 13-18, 2023.
The Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS), a leading international organization
dedicated to the study of borders and border-related issues, has organized a World
Conference once every four years in different border regions of the world, in
collaboration with a host country institution. The first one was held in Joensuu, Finland
and St. Petersburg, Russia in June 2014, under the leadership of the University of
Eastern Finland, and the second in Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary, in July
2018, under the leadership of the University of Vienna. The two conferences drew some
500 border scholars and policymakers from around the world to discuss the latest border
research and debate pressing global and regional issues affecting borders and
transborder communities.
The third world conference will be held at the Eilat Campus of the Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev. We not only welcome scholars, experts and practitioners, but
also strongly encourage students working on borders and border-related issues to submit
and present their work under the general conference theme of “Borders, Edges and
Interfaces: Pluralities and Scales.”
We are beginning to see the light at the end of this pandemic tunnel, but the light does
not clearly reveal the shape of the world we are approaching. Given the considerable
uncertainty we face, we hope that the conference will provide the opportunity for us to
share our knowledge and exchange our views and insights into the post-pandemic
world.
We look forward to your participation.
Dr. Naomi Chi
ABS President
Associate Professor, Hokkaido University, Japan
Professor Haim Hames
$150
$75
$100
$75
$50
$60
NB: Price is in US dollars.
The southern border wall, as it is euphemistically known, between the United States…
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