Borderscapes: Borders, Migrations and Environments in Geo(political) Margins
The Borderscapes group is the Department of Geography’s hub for research on the political and environmental spaces shaped by borders and the wider politics of b/ordering.
Borders are among the most urgent political questions of our time. Despite promises of a globalised mobile world, borders have very real implications, shaping the everyday life of millions, and determining who can move, who must wait, who perpetuates, and who bears the costs of border violence, militarisation, and occupation. Some of the world’s most violent border are also concentrated zones of Extractivism and rapid environmental degradation. Our group uses the term Borderscapes to signal how we both work with, but also beyond strict territorial borderlands. We also study geographies marked by the politics of borders at multiple scales and “scapes” - including refugee and migrant spaces like camps, detention spaces; zones of armed conflict and control; resource and infrastructural frontier that seek to “bridge” borders to global markets and supply chains. Across various sites and projects, our group explores how borders shape migration, Extractivism, violence, urban spaces and natural environments, and how people living in borders navigate, contest, and reshape these conditions. In doing so, we are guided by three approaches:
- Interdisciplinary methods: We combine geospatial analysis with field-based research. Using remote sensing, satellite imagery, and GIS, we study borders and environmental change at broader spatial and temporal scales. Through long-term ethnographic, qualitative, and historical research, we examine how bordering practices are experienced and navigated in everyday life. This allows us to study borderscapes from both above and below.
- Comparative perspective: We work comparatively across the Global North and South, with research spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the borders in between.
- Feminist approaches: We take an intersectional approach emphasising situated knowledge, research ethics of care, and critical reflection on how knowledge about borders is produced. We centre perspectives of migrants and refugees, alongside those of local communities, Indigenous groups, border officials, and other actors working on all sides of borders.
Group leader
Group members
Asebe Regassa
Gabriel Kamundala
Hanna Hilbrandt (Mentor)
Michelle Welter (MSc Student)
Gian Grichting (MSc Student)
Rebeka Magdalena Bacova (MSc Student)
Graham Thomas Heath (Student Assistant)
Collaborators
Shoona Long
Maria J. Santos
Claudia Röösli (NPOC, Swiss National Point of Contact for satellite images)
Ella Schubiger
Charles Heller (Border Forensics)
Belongs to the organizational unit
Current Projects
Toxic Borderscapes: An interdisciplinary research project examining how border violence, extractive economies, and environmental harm intersect in border regions. Supported by the GRC Career Grant and the XCEPT Conflict Borderlands Theory Grant, the project combines ethnographic research with remote sensing and geospatial analysis to study environmental and political violence in global borderlands.
Checkpoints and Internal Borders in Wartime Geographies: A collaborative ethnographic and geospatial project on internal borders and checkpoints in conflict settings. Conducted in partnership with the National Point of Contact for Satellite Imagery (UZH NPOC), the project combines field-based research with satellite imagery to analyse how wartime borders are produced and experienced, with a focus on Myanmar.
Oxford Handbook of South Asian Borders: An edited volume bringing together leading scholarship on borders, migration, and political geographies across South Asia. Funded by the Institute of South Asian Studies, the handbook offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of border dynamics in the region.
Myanmar’s Borderworlds between war and peace: A long-term ethnographic research project on Myanmar’s border regions with India and China. The project examines how borders, mobility, and everyday life have been reshaped by the military coup and ongoing civil war, with attention to migration, armed actors, civil society and local communities.