Borderscapes
New Releases
•
31m
Borderscapes draws attention to the complexity surrounding migration and the myriad ethical and political issues arising from contemporary border policies. It builds on testimonial narratives, empirical examples, and reflective accounts to unpack the entanglements of surveillance technologies, the externalisation of border control, marchandage politique (political bargaining), and the way Europe’s colonial legacy in Africa continues today through extractive economic practices and the proliferating border and asylum control agreements (e.g. between Spain and Morocco and the recent UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership). The film makes you wonder, how far are developed countries willing to go to fortify their borders and revoke the freedom of movement, while at the same time intensifying their extractive practices to enable and maximise the flow of profit?
Director: Btihaj Ajana
Research: Btihaj Ajana, Audrey Samson, Francisco Gallardo
Narrative: Btihaj Ajana and Tyler Liddle
Production Assistant: Zhennuo Song
Suggested Readings:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/le-monde-africa/article/2023/02/10/casablanca-the-new-invisible-border-for-migrants-with-their-sights-set-on-europe_6015219_124.html
Ajana, B. (2013) Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity
Demetriou, O. and Dimova, R. (2018) The political materialities of borders: New theoretical directions.
Gazzotti, L. (2021) Immigration Nation: Aid, Control, and Border Politics in Morocco.
Up Next in New Releases
-
Ignacio's Legacy
The British film maker Brian Moser first visited the Piraparaná region and its different communities in 1960 as part of an expedition to record their music and to visually document their lives, resulting in the short film Piraparaná. Over the subsequent 50 years and in collaboration with the ant...
-
Front Line
Nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, were on strike in 2021 for more than 300 days. At the center of the strike is the concern about staffing, specifically the high patient-to-nurse ratios that nurses say make it difficult to provide adequate care for patients. According to...
-
Why the Mountains are Black
A team of researchers meet at Mount Çika, in an effort to document the dialect of the Greek-speaking Himariote villages. The area was subjected to political prosecution and after the fall of Communism in Albania, the region was marked by waves of migration. Today, its population has been decrease...
