Keynote Speakers
Associate Professor Dorte Jagetic Andersen University of Southern Denmark
“Seeing from the border in times of multiple crises – reflections on the potential of ‘the borderland perspective’ in dealing with crisis“
We seem to be faced with a series of critical events shaping the world. Armed conflict, economic crisis, refugee crises, and health and climate crises have, at least discursively, turned into “critical continuities” increasingly presented as the dominant paradigm of government. The term “crisis” is currently used to account for almost any form of socio-historical change, and thereby turned into a political tool, hiding non-innocent matters of concern below so-called “matters of facts” calling for similarly indisputable emergency responses. It is in this context of inflationary use of the term “crisis” that this keynote intervenes. The aim is to problematize “the worldly condition of crisis” by critically reflecting the notion of crisis from the perspective of the borderlands, thereby countering discourses that simply reify crisis. By zooming in on the borderlands via notions of “people resilience” and “the green transition”, the argument is that “seeing from the border” carries great potential to develop constructive ways of dealing with this presupposed worldly condition of crisis. This is foremost because the borderland perspective moves us beyond indisputable claims about urgency and emergency responses by showing that living and being in crisis involves a complex field of ongoing ontological struggles and politics embedded in everyday life practice and calling for much more situated and subtle responses.
Dr. Sabine Lehner, Ilse Arlt Institute for Social Inclusion Research, University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, Austria
The conference will also include the final event of the LangWork project.
“Theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives on the relationship between language, boundaries and borders“
This talk begins by exploring the complex and dialectic relationship between linguistic/discursive practices and the formation of (socio-symbolic) boundaries and (geopolitical) borders. After this theoretical exploration, the talk includes empirical perspectives based on a research project on asylum seekers’ narration of experiences with borders and boundaries during their flight and in their ‘host country’ Austria. More specifically, the talk elaborates the relationship between language and boundaries/borders in a case study on my research participants’ positioning strategies towards learning German (the dominant language in Austria). The analysis of the narrative reconstruction of border and boundary experiences requires the critical engagement with broader border and asylum discourses as well as the researcher’s positionality. Adopting this approach allows for a better understanding of the way how asylum seekers’ narratives (i.e., of their experiences with borders and boundaries) and their positionings (e.g., towards learning German) are affected by the encompassing border regime and why they are prompted to position themselves as legitimate, thankful, deserving and ‘willing to integrate’. Against the backdrop of their precarious legal status and a restrictive Austrian border regime, the data show how asylum seekers internalize dominant language ideologies and border/boundary experiences, which become particularly apparent in research encounters.
