The Violence of Borders

Tuesday, 1 August, 2017 - 18:30
WiSER invites you to a lecture by
 
Achille Mbembe on
 
THE VIOLENCE OF BORDERS
 
The government of human mobility might well be the most important problem to confront the world during the first half of the twenty-first century.  By subscribing to the state-centric model of territorially delimited nations with closed borders, postcolonial African states disavowed long traditions of circulation that had been the dynamic motor of change in the continent prior to colonial conquest. 
 
In so doing, they embraced the anti-humanist drive inherent in colonial Western philosophies of movement  and of space and turned it against their own people. Since then, the fetishization of the nation-state has done untold damage to Africa's destiny in the world. The human, economic, cultural and intellectual cost of the existing border regime has been colossal. To bring this regime to closure requires a genuine change of paradigm as far as the management of intra-African migration is concerned. 
 
In this lecture, Achille Mbembe will reflect on what such a change would entail. Drawing from African precolonial philosophies of space and movement, he will show what our contribution to the unfolding global debate on human mobility in this age of planetary entanglement could be.
 
We encourage those who plan to attend the lecture to read Achille Mbembe, "Africa Needs Free Movement", Mail and Guardian, 24 March 2017. The article is available here.
 
Tuesday, 1st August 2017
6pm
WiSER Seminar Room
 
All welcome.
 
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