New Podcast on Democracy, Migration Studies, and Border Studies: Bridges and/or Gaps

Migration Studies explore all mobility regimes of human groups. There is a spectrum of public policies ranging from the migration of high-skilled workers to refugees. For the Migration Studies, national borders provide a form of social closure. Traditionally, Borders refer to issues that are fundamental to political community (state sovereignty, territorial delimitation, national security, political identity). And for this reason, borders are also instruments for regulating flows, policy tool for inclusion/exclusion. Several authors have pointed out a form of gap between Border Studies and Migration Studies. That there was a lack of cross-fertilization between these two research traditions. And some populist and nationalist discourses can exploit the ambivalence of the borders and the confusion around it. Oliver Schmidtke joined BIG_Lab to discuss all the relations between democracy, migration, and borders and get answers to some important questions.

Dr. Oliver Schmidtke is leading the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada project – Governing Irregular Migration and Refugees – Towards Pragmatic Approaches and Effective Policies in a Transatlantic Perspective.