<p align="left"><b>The Institute for International Studies, Trans/forming Cultures and Research Initiative in International Activism present:</b></p>
<p align="left"><b>Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna – CCR, University of Western Sydney)</b></p>
<p align="left"><b>Border crossing and border reinforcing. Politics of citizenship and movements of migration in a postcolonial Europe</b></p>
<b>Tuesday 21 November, 6.30pm<br>
University of Technology Sydney Lecture theatre CB01.04.06 (Tower building entrance level)</b><br>
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<p align="left">The presentation will start by a definition of the
postcolonial condition in contemporary Europe. The point will be made
that it is precisely the composition and the characteristics of
migratory movements that make possible and indeed necessary to talk
about a "postcolonial Europe". Taking into account a series of recent
analysis of the EU structure, the paper will further highlight some
peculiarities of the relation EU is developing with its territory.
Transformations of migration management schemes in recent years will be
discussed with particular reference to the issue of borders control.
Confronting movements of migration that challenge any rigid definition
of borders, European politics seem indeed to point at a flexible model
of border control, that is increasingly blurring the very distinction
between an "inside" and an "outside" to European space. This tendency
will be analysed in the third and last part of the presentation, where
I will try to underscore the consequences it has for the still in the
making European citizenship. </p>
<p align="left">My hypothesis is that European citizenship is currently
crisscrossed by the contradictory dynamics of border crossing and
border reinforcing, to borrow the concepts proposed in his analysis of
the US-Mexican border by the anthropologist Pablo Vila. On the one hand
it presents the risk of an drift toward what Étienne Balibar has
provocatively called a "new apartheid" (or toward the postcolonial
re-emergence of the distinction between citizen and subject within the
European space itself). On the other hand it potentially hosts the
tendency toward an opening up of democracy, beyond the constraints of
the nation-state form and a narrow interpretation of the European
identity. In both senses the condition, the movements, and the
struggles of migration are crucial sites of investigation and political
action.</p>
<p align="left">Sandro Mezzadra is Associate Professor of Political
Theory at the University of Bologna and is currently visiting fellow at
the University of Western Sydney (Centre for Cultural Research). His
research has been focusing for many years on the issue of borders
politics, citizenship and migration. He is involved in various forms of
borders and migration related activism in Italy and in Europe. </p>
<p align="left">Among his recent publications in English are:</p>
<p align="left">(With Brett Neilson), Né qui, né altrove. Migration, Detention, Desertion: A Dialogue, in <i>Borderlands </i>e-journal Volume 2 Number 1, 2003.</p>
<p align="left">Citizen and Subject. A Postcolonial Constitution for the European Union?, in <i>Situations </i>I (2005-2006), 2, pp. 31-42.</p>
<p align="left">(With Etienne Balibar), Borders, Citizenship, War, Class. A Dialogue, ed. by M. Bojadzijev and I. Saint-Saëns, in <i>New Formations </i>Number 58, summer 2006.</p>
<p align="left">(With Federico Rahola), The Postcolonial Condition: A Few Notes on the Quality of Historical Time in the Global Present, in <i>Postcolonial Text</i> II (2006), 1.<br>
</p>
<p align="left">Contact: <a href="mailto:ilaria.vanni@uts.edu.au">ilaria.vanni@uts.edu.au</a><br>
</p>